Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — BOARD OF TRADE

Plastics (Duties)

Sir C. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that British plastics going into America pay a 40 per cent. duty, whereas American plastics coming to Great Britain only pay a 10 per cent. duty; and since America has a favourable trade balance with this country of about £250 million a year, if he will take steps to make these duties equal; and if he will make a statement.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Douglas Jay): The Government are at present engaged on the Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations in the G.A.T.T., in which their object is to secure a general reduction of tariffs on a reciprocal basis. While these negotiations are in progress we cannot consider a unilateral increase in our duties on plastics.

Sir C. Osborne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a general reduction under the Kennedy Round will not help us at all? Will he tell the American Government that unless they reduce their tariffs to our levels we can never obtain the dollars with which to pay for the American goods that they want to sell us?

Mr. Jay: I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's objections, but experience shows that we make most progress by multilateral negotiations.

Cotton Board (Future)

Sir C. Osborne: asked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the

fact that the Cotton Board was created during the depression, if he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to replace it by a textile board that will include wool, man-made fibres and the hosiery industry; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Jay: A review of the future of the Cotton Board is now in progress; and I hope that this will result in the formation of a body whose scope and functions will be more adapted to present-day conditions. The wool and hosiery industries were invited to participate in this review, but they declined.

Sir C. Osborne: In view of the fact that man-made fibres are generally taking the place of the old-fashioned cotton and wool, will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that the Board will include representatives of the man-made fibres industry, so as to be more effectively representative of the whole trade?

Mr. Jay: Yes. I hope that it will be possible quite shortly to reach agreement on an authority with a good deal wider scope than the previous one.

Film Distribution (Monopolies Commission's Report)

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the President of the Board of Trade when he expects the report of the Monopolies Commission on Film Distribution.

Mr. Jay: I expect to receive this report within the next two or three months.

Mr. Jenkins: Does my right hon. Friend know that the British film industry is in a very bad way? Will he express the view to the Commission that the sooner it can get out its report the better?

Mr. Jay: I await its report with interest.

Garda Trust

Mr. Whitaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will set up an inquiry under Section 165 of the Companies Act to investigate the fraudulent conduct arising from the operation of the Garda Trust.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Roy Mason): No, Sir. The facts in this case are sufficiently known and the scheme has, I understand, been terminated.

Mr. Whitaker: In view of the fact that solicitors who engage in similar practices are disciplined and expelled from their profession, can my hon. Friend explain why this matter does not fall within Section 20 of the Larceny Act? What steps will he take to see that no other directors are enriching themselves at the expense of the shareholders in their companies without consulting those shareholders?

Mr. Mason: As the House has been informed, my right hon. Friend is considering what provision may be included in the Companies Bill about schemes of this kind.

Import Surcharge (Norway)

Mr. Marten: asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations the Government have received this year from Norway about the import surcharge; what replies have been sent; and what has been the effect of the surcharge on trade between Great Britain and Norway.

Mr. Jay: The Norwegian Minister of Trade raised this question with me in the course of discussions held in February and April, when I reassured him about the temporary nature of the charge. Since then my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that it will lapse at the end of November. Our imports from Norway have continued to rise since the charge was imposed.

Mr. Marten: Is not one of the side-effects of the imposition of a surcharge to stimulate intra-Scandinavian trade between Norway, Denmark and Sweden, at the expense of British trade with Scandinavia?

Mr. Jay: I see no sign of that on the figures. Our trade with each Scandinavian country has continued to increase.

Mr. Barber: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that one consequence of the prior announcement of the ending of the surcharge to which he has referred will be artificially to reduce the level of imports for the period between now and the autumn, and in the period immediately thereafter to cause a flood of imports?

Mr. Jay: That also applied to the reduction we made a year ago, but it turned out not to have a very substantial effect.

Catalogues (Import Duty)

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: asked the President of the Board of Trade why import duty and the temporary surchage on imports are not charged in respect of imported catalogues mailed direct from overseas by a foreign firm to individual addressees in the United Kingdom to the order of a United Kingdom firm.

Mr. Mason: Import duties have never been charged on single copies of trade catalogues and similar publications sent by post to individual addressees, primarily because the cost and difficulty of collecting the negligible amounts of duty payable on each package would be prohibitive.

Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman look at this question again? Is he aware that the import of catalogues, gift coupons and such things is now reaching substation proportions, and that British printers have to pay duty on imported paper, and that this therefore represents increasingly unfair competition against the British printing industry?

Mr. Mason: We are always prepared to consider representations from representative bodies on this matter, but it seems a lot to ask that every individual catalogue should be checked. It would be uneconomical.

Manufacturers (Inducements to Retailers)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the practice of manufacturers whereby retailers are offered financial inducements to stock the manufacturers' products in preference to those of their competitors, to the detriment of the public's range of choice and the operation of competition and the forces of demand; and if he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to deal with this problem.

Mr. Jay: I am aware that some manufacturers promote sales by offering various inducements to retailers, but I have no evidence to suggest that this practice operates against the public interest; and I do not think that Government intervention is called for.

Mr. Iremonger: How can the right hon. Gentleman pretend that this does not


operate against the public interest? It is surely obvious. Competition is not between retailers who can give the best value for money but between retailers and manufacturers who can devise the most cunning and crude methods of sales techniques.

Mr. Jay: The Molony Committee considered this and took a different view. I should hestitate to disagree with that Committee.

Packages (Labelling)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to compel traders to label packages with an indication of the price per pound or ounce, instead of indicating the price for an odd quantity, which makes it more difficult for the consumer to assess comparative value for money as between one product And another.

Mr. Jay: I see no grounds for a general requirement of this kind.

Company Law

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the President of the Board of Trade what plans he now has for the introduction of legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the Jenkins Committee on the reform of company law.

Mr. Jay: A Companies Bill is being prepared for introduction in the present Session if time is available, and, if not, for introduction in the next Session.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: May we have an assurance that the Bill will be a considerable improvement on the miserable affair that the right hon. Gentleman introduced in the last Parliament and that it will take account of the Jenkins Committee's representations? Does not he agree that such a Bill would be far more urgent a contribution to industrial efficiency than such irrelevancies as the nationalisation of steel?

Mr. Jay: As we now have a better Parliament, with a bigger Government majority, there is a logical case for a bigger and better Bill.

Mr. Barber: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my hon. Friend's Question. How does it come about that, before

the election, the Government considered that company legislation was more urgent than steel nationalisation whereas now the latter is to have priority?

Mr. Jay: For the reason I have given—that, in this better Parliament, there is a place for a better Bill and that it takes a little time to prepare.

Research Buildings (Investment Grants)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will alter the proposed system of investment incentives to enable buildings used for research, such as high altitude test chambers, to qualify for investment grants.

Mr. Jay: Buildings will not be eligible for grants under Part I of the Industrial Development Bill, but expenditure on buildings used for scientific research will continue to receive the special 100 per cent. tax write-off allowance. In addition, buildings in Development Areas will be eligible for grants at 25 per cent. or 35 per cent. where employment is provided. I am advised that high altitude test chambers normally include some element which would be regarded as plant or machinery, and this would qualify for investment grant.

Mr. Campbell: Should not this kind of investment receive high priority in any incentive system? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making all parts of such investment in research eligible?

Mr. Jay: It already receives 100 per cent. write-off and I think that that is very favourable treatment.

Blackpool and the Fylde Coast

Mr. Blaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will designate Blackpool and the Fylde coast as a development area.

Mr. Jay: The economic circumstances of this area do not justify adding it to the proposed development areas.

Mr. Blaker: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the unemployment rate in the area, even at this time of the year, is very much above the national average and that, in my constituency, a


very large factory, with over 1 million square feet of space, has been empty for some time? Does not this give the area at least as good a claim to be a development area as many other places which are already so scheduled?

Mr. Jay: I agree that the area has an unemployment rate rather above the national average, but it is not high enough to justify full development area concessions. It does, however, justify an easy I.D.C. policy for the area.

Pitch Fibre Pipes Limited, West Hartlepool

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he is aware that a number of investors in Pitch Fibre Pipes Limited, West Hartlepool, responded to statements by the chairman of the company and that those statements were based on the fact of Board of Trade grants and loans; and in view of the rapid deterioration of the company's financial position and of the fact that shares were bought on the basis of 20s. per share, giving a return of 5s. per share, and information supplied to him by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools suggesting that some shares changed hands at £3 and more each, he will set up an inquiry into the affairs of the company under section 165(b) of the Companies Act 1948, inasmuch as the company has acted in a manner oppressive of its members;
(2) Why the fullest investigation was not made by the Board of Trade Advisory Committee into the application of Pitch Fibre Pipes Limited, West Hartlepool, for a grant and loan totalling £235,000; and, in view of losses suffered by investors and the early deterioration of the firm's financial position in West Hartlepool, whether he is now satisfied that the Board of Trade Advisory Committee had all the facts before it before the grant and loan were made.

Mr. Jay: On present information I am satisfied that the Board of Trade would not be justified in appointing an inspector under Section 165(b) of the Companies Act, 1948, to investigate the affairs of Pitch Fibre Pipes Limited. I am also satisfied that, before the Board of Trade Advisory Committee recommended a loan under Section 4 of the Local Employment Act, it carried out a full investigation into the relevant facts.

Mr. Leadbitter: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that there is concern and suspicion in my constituency about this matter? Does not he agree that it is regrettable that so many investors have lost large sums of money and that the Board of Trade refused to take steps to avoid this? Is not he further aware that the company had very limited experience in the manufacture of these products and that, when the public loan was made, it only had £200 nominal capital while the chairman had only one 5s. share? Will my hon. Friend consider an inquiry into the Board of Trade Advisory Committee?

Mr. Jay: I see no grounds for suspicion in this case. The Board of Trade Advisory Committee is always being urged to act more quickly and to take risks. If it does take risks, it must occasionally be prepared to accept them. No public money has been lost.

Mr. Leadbitter: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Shipowners (Credit Facilities)

Mr. Stratton Mills: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will seek to arrange credit facilities for British shipowners building at home equal to those for foreign shipowners building in British yards; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Mason: Credit facilities in respect of building by United Kingdom shipowners in United Kingdom yards is one of the subjects dealt with by the Geddes Committee. I have at present no statement to make.

Mr. Mills: Does not the Minister of State agree that the present arrangements are placing British shipowners at a disadvantage and encouraging them to build abroad?

Mr. Mason: No, Sir.

Mr. Mills: Why not?

Mr. Mason: Because the British shipowners must fight in competitive markets. If they are to match international freight rates, they must buy in the cheapest


market and must take into account price, delivery date, speed of building and design, which are almost as important as credit facilities.

Development Areas (Publicly-owned Industries)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what progress is being made with his plans for the creation of new publicly-owned industries in development areas, especially in mining areas likely to suffer from pit closures.

Mr. Jay: A large number of publicly-owned factories, advance and otherwise, are now being built in development districts; and new publicly-owned industrial estates are being developed and existing estates extended.

Mr. Hamilton: Why does my right hon. Friend continually refuse to answer the Question, which relates to publicly-owned industries and not to factories? Does he recall that the Prime Minister, before the 1964 election, made a speech in Liverpool committing the Labour Party to publicly-owned industries in the development areas? When will my right hon. Friend be able to come to the House and say that such industries are to be established?

Mr. Jay: If my hon. Friend wants literally new publicly-owned industries, much wider legislation will be required. If he is thinking of projects in which the public may participate, the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation shortly to come into existence will help.

Sir C. Osborne: Will the right hon. Gentleman resist the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton)? [HON. MEMBERS:"Why?"] Because publicly-owned businesses so far have lost money and paid no taxes from profits to help maintain the Welfare State.

Mr. Jay: More than £100 million worth of factory space is now owned by the Board of Trade in these areas. Practically all of it is occupied, and that should satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), if not the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne).

Mr. Shinwell: Is not the point raised by the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) one reason why my right hon. Friend might give this further consideration?

Mr. Barber: Can the right hon. Gentleman say clearly and unequivocally that it is not his intention to create new publicly-owned industries?

Mr. Jay: No, Sir.

Greenhill Industrial Estate, Coatbridge (Slag Heap)

Mr. Dempsey: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will exercise his powers under the Local Employment Act to clear the slag heap at Greenhill Industrial Estate, Coatbridge, for the purpose of further industrial development.

Mr. Jay: There is land in or near Coatbridge available for substantial industrial development. There is no necessity for me to acquire this particular site.

Mr. Dempsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the area has more than twice the national average of unemployment and that, in addition, it is expected that in the next few years several hundred men will be out of work because of closure of obsolescent industries? Will he therefore go ahead and develop the site?

Mr. Jay: From the point of view of employment it is not additional sites that are needed but more firms to occupy existing sites. The local authority has power to clear sites for other reasons.

Watch and Clock Industry

Mr. Turton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to protect the British watch and clock industry from the recent increase in subsidised imports of watches and clocks from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Mr. Jay: Imports of these items from the Soviet Union are limited by quota; and despite the increase in the quota for watches in 1966, represent a very small fraction of the total imports of clocks and watches.

Mr. Turton: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this, bearing in mind that the British watch and clock


industry has always been regarded as of strategic importance? In the last two years, these imports from Russia have increased by 50 per cent. and our adverse trade balance with Russia has got much worse.

Mr. Jay: I am not inclined to increase this quota while our trade balance with Russia remains as it is. But these imports are a very small fraction of the total imports and an even smaller fraction of total consumption, so they have very little effect on prices.

Development Area Projects (Grants)

Mr. G. Campbell: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether projects started after 17th January, 1966, in the proposed development areas, not previously development districts, will qualify for grants under the legislation to replace the Local Employment Acts only if they are not completed by the coming into force of that legislation.

Mr. Jay: Yes. Projects in these places which are completed before the legislation comes into force will not qualify for building grants and grants under Section 4 of the 1960 Act.

Mr. Campbell: Since no one can be certain when this legislation will be passed, has not the effect of this been to delay development rather than to encourage it in these areas?

Mr. Jay: No, Sir. These areas were not development districts before and I have no power to make grants under the old Act to areas which were not develop-districts under that Act. That would have been so in any case.

Trade Fair, Oslo (Minister's Visit)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his visit to the trade fair in Oslo with special reference to the prospects of increasing trade, industry and cultural intercourse between Scotland and Scandinavia.

Mr. Jay: I have every hope that the British Fair and Fortnight in Oslo, which was most successful both in attendance and initial orders, will lead to a further increase in our trade with Norway and indeed with the other Scandinavian

countries. Scotland with its traditional links with Scandinavia should be well placed to share in any such increase.

Mr. Hughes: While thanking the Minister for that answer, may I ask him to specify the particular industries which are common to both countries and which may benefit north-east Scotland in general, and Aberdeen in particular, as a result of increasing trade?

Mr. Jay: Forestry is one of those industries common to both countries, but I think that one of the Scottish exports which will certainly benefit is woollen goods.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Having regard to the import surcharge, was not the right hon. Gentleman extremely tactless to accuse the Norwegians of being in breach of the spirit of the E.F.T.A. agreement?

Mr. Jay: No, Sir. The trouble with the hon. Gentleman is that he is always defending every country except his own.

Guarantees and Contracts (Exclusion Clauses)

Mr. Carter-Jones: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to prevent exclusion clauses in guarantees and contracts for the sales of goods.

Mr. Mason: I am in sympathy with my hon. Friend's general aim, but restraint on exclusion clauses is a complex matter which is to be studied in a wider context by a working party which the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission are setting up. I would prefer not to prejudge this study by piecemeal legislation.

Import Quotas

Mr. Biffen: asked the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has for import quotas when the surcharge is revoked.

Mr. Jay: None, Sir.

Mr. Biffen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable disquiet about the intentions of the British Government regarding import quotas, as evidenced by the latest international economic review of the First National Bank of Chicago? Can he allay these fears by asserting that it would


be an index of the Government's failure if they were obliged to introduce import quotas this year?

Mr. Jay: The best way to allay these fears would be to continue the increase in exports which we have seen this year.

Mr. Barber: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that when the surcharge is discontinued it will not be followed by import quotas?

Mr. Jay: That is an excellent example of a hypothetical question.

Mr. Sheldon: Does my right hon. Friend rot agree that at present imports are much too high and that when the surcharge is finally removed they may be higher than the economy can readily withstand? Would he not further agree that it is time that we introduced into the balance of payments situation some measure of certainty?

Mr. Jay: The best way to restore the balance is by expanding exports rather than by restricting imports.

Trade with Latin America

Mr. Buchanan: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent Her Majesty's Government participate in the furthering of trade with Latin America.

Mr. Mason: All the Government's usual services to exporters are available for trade with Latin America, and exporters to that area receive the same assistance from my Department as exporters trading to any other part of the world.

Mr. Buchanan: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask if he is aware that some manufacturers' associations complain that exports to that particular area are being hampered by a lack of sympathy and credit facilities on the part of the Government? Would my hon. Friend give an assurance that the Government will give every help and assistance to exporters?

Mr. Mason: Yes, Sir. As my hon. Friend knows, we have already set up a Committee for Exports to Latin America. This is stimulating interest among people in this country in the possibilities of trade with Latin America. At this moment

50 per cent. of the trade with Latin America is covered by E.C.G.D. credit facilities.

Mr. Bessell: In view of the considerable expansion of trade from Japan and West Germany with Latin America, is this matter receiving priority? If not, will it receive urgent attention, because I think that it is true that we are losing a considerable amount of potential trade with that part of the world?

Mr. Mason: It is very much in the forefront of our minds.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister co-operating with the arms salesman, in order to export arms to South America, and if so, is he co-operating with the United States of America, and what do they think of this?

Mr. Mason: That is an entirely different question from that on the Order Paper.

Consumer Protection

Mr. Goodhart: asked the President of the Board of Trade what plans he has for protecting consumers by introducing legislation during the present Session.

Mr. Jay: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) on 2nd May.

Mr. Goodhart: Is the President aware that that means that the Labour Government will not have introduced any important consumer legislation in the first three years of their life? Why has consumer legislation been downgraded and why has the Consumer Bill been dropped?

Mr. Jay: We intend to introduce this legislation as soon as possible.

Mr. William Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government spokesman in the other place yesterday gave an assurance that this legislation would be brought forward this Session?

Mr. Jay: If that was said it was perfectly valid.

Crystal Palace (Industrial Exhibition Centre)

Mr. Goodhart: asked the President of the Board of Trade when work will begin on the proposed National Industrial Exhibition centre at Crystal Palace.

Mr. Jay: I am considering this project with the Greater London Council and others concerned as a matter of urgency. A decision whether to proceed with it will be taken as soon as possible.

Mr. Goodhart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the consultations between Greater London Council and the Confederation of British Industry have been moving very well? Can he assure the House that a decision will be announced before the Summer Recess?

Mr. Jay: I am very anxious to do so. The only obstacle is the cost. If we can get the cost within a reasonable limit I hope that it will be possible to proceed.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that one of the finest forms of a national industrial exhibitions centre is one which floats? Is he aware that one of the reasons why the Japanese have been so successful in capturing trade in South America, to which he was refering earlier, is because they have used this technique? Will he consider this?

Mr. Jay: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but there are two views on this subject.

New Industries, Galloway

Mr. Brewis: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for local employment grants he has received in the last year from new industries wishing to start manufacturing establishments in Galloway.

Mr. Jay: None, Sir, for new projects in the financial year 1965–66. But 17 applications were received in that year from firms already in the area: and offers of assistance were made to 10 projects, two of them new.

Mr. Brewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Galloway has probably the lowest proportion of manufacturing industry in the country—only 14 per cent.? Would he redouble his efforts to

bring manufacturing industry there in view of depopulation and unemployment?

Mr. Jay: I fully agree that there is a great need in this area.

Export Officers (Recruitment)

Mr. Moonman: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will specify the main sources of recruitment of export officers.

Mr. Jay: These officers are established civil servants who have entered the Service through the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. Moonman: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied with the recruitment of these officers, and that they include people with a sufficient range of experience of market research and other sales techniques? From what he has said this would not appear to be the case.

Mr. Jay: On the whole, experience suggests that this is the best method of recruiting. I would not argue that it should never be reviewed.

Mr. Bessell: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that recruitment is satisfactory, in the sense that the officers concerned compare favourably with their counterparts in other countries?

Mr. Jay: Yes, Sir. I think that is so, but it would no doubt require a very detailed review to prove it absolutely. From the information I have, I would certainly say that this is so.

Mines, Scotland (Manpower)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what representations have been made to him concerning the difficulties of the National Coal Board in recruiting sufficient manpower in Scotland to man developing mines; and what reply he gave.

Mr. Jay: None, Sir.

Mr. Hamilton: Has my right hon. Friend seen reports in the Scottish Press to the effect that the National Coal Board has made representations to the appropriate Government Departments on this matter? Can he give an assurance that the Board of Trade and other Government Departments will not cease in their


efforts to diversify industrial opportunities in Fife and other mining areas?

Mr. Jay: The representations I am conscious of having received from the Coal Board are to the effect that new employment is needed in these areas.

Advance Factory, Blaenau Ffestiniog

Mr. William Edwards: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the progress made in building the advance factory allocated to Blaenau Ffestiniog in November, 1964.

Mr. Jay: Purchase of the site for this factory, and the substantial extension required by the company to which it has been allocated, was not completed until March this year. If the company signs the agreement to lease in the near future, construction can begin within about 10 days of signature. The factory will then take about seven months to complete.

Mr. Edwards: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that there will be no further delay in building this factory, bearing in mind the increase in the number of advance factories now being built in Wales?

Mr. Jay: Yes. So far as we are concerned, we are now awaiting a reply from the firm.

Bottled and Canned Beers

Mr. Rhodes: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he will introduce regulations so that bottled and canned beers are sold in future only in pints and half pints; and whether he will make a statement;
(2) whether he will introduce regulations to ensure that in future the quantity of beer sold in cans is indicated on the label of the container.

Mr. Mason: The Weights and Measures Act already requires closed containers of beer to be marked with an indication of quantity unless they contain less than three fluid ounces or more than one gallon. I have no evidence at present to suggest that it would be desirable to provide also that they should contain only pints and half pints.

Mr. Rhodes: Is my hon. Friend aware that the trade in general is selling this

liquid in containers of 19 1/3rd and 9 2/3rd. fluid ozs. which is different from the standardised pint and half-pint of 20 and 10 fluid ozs. respectively? Is it not time that consumers were protected by having this liquid sold in quantities popularly understood in order to stop this diminishing pint?

Mr. Mason: If evidence were forthcoming of a wide variation in the quantities in which prepacked beer is packed, or of a significant variation from the present quantities, consideration would have to be given to presenting an Order in the House.

Ships, Aberdeen Harbour (Collision)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the President of the Board of Trade if be will make a statement about the collision in Aberdeen Harbour on 1st May between the tanker "Pass of Kildrummy" and the seine-netter "Boy David", indicating how it occurred, the damage done, and the compensation involved.

Mr. Mason: At 5.45 p.m. on 2nd May, the tanker "Pass of Kildrummy" while manoeuvring out of Aberdeen Harbour scraped against the jetty and came into contact with the fishing vessel "Boy David" which as a result sustained damage to her mast and part of her guard rail. I understand the damage caused to the tanker and the jetty was very slight. The question of compensation is a matter for the parties involved.

Mr. Hughes: Can my hon. Friend say what steps he is taking to avoid similar unhappy incidents of this kind?

Mr. Mason: I cannot see that my body mass is sufficient to prevent collisions of this kind.

Scottish Shipyards (Orders)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the President of the Board of Trade what estimate he has made of the loss of potential shipping orders to Scottish yards through the shortage of skilled labour.

Mr. Mason: Scottish yards with full order books have not been willing to compete for some business on offer, but I cannot estimate how many further orders would have been taken if skilled labour were not scarce.

Close Companies (Liquidation)

Mr. Weatherill: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many close companies have gone into liquidation since 1st January, 1966; and how these figures compare with the first quarter of 1965.

Mr. Jay: Separate statistics of the liquidation of close companies are not available.

Mr. Weatherill: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there have been a very large number of liquidations and that these result directly from the provisions of the last Finance Act? Would not he also agree that the only crime which these companies appear to have committed is to have risked their own capital rather than that of a rather anonymous number of shareholders, that this is not a crime, and that they should be encouraged rather than put out of business?

Mr. Jay: Without statistics, I cannot judge whether that is true or not.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Could the right hon. Gentleman say why there are no statistics available?

Mr. Jay: Not without notice. But I gather that they have never yet been collected.

Mr. Barnett: Is it not a fact that the majority of such liquidations are in property and investment companies and not in normal trading companies?

Privately-owned Limited Liability Companies

Mr. Weatherill: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the reduction of the number of privately-owned limited liability companies and their replacement by partnerships of unlimited status.

Mr. Jay: Her Majesty's Government consider that incorporation with limited liability is a privilege which carries obligations to the public, and intend to provide in the Companies Bill that all limited companies should file their accounts with the Registrar of Companies, and thus make them available for public inspection. It would be open

to companies valuing privacy above limited liability to reregister as unlimited or to wind up and carry on as partnerships.

Mr. Weatherill: Does not the President of the Board of Trade recognise that the status of limited liability has been a very great benefit to British industry over the past 100 years and that very many of these companies are now having to go into unlimited liability, which is very difficult for them? Should not they be encouraged to retain their limited liability status?

Mr. Jay: There is a strong case for saying that a company should choose between limited liability, on the one hand, and privacy, on the other.

Overseas Trade Accounts

Mr Biffen: asked the President of the Board of Trade what was the average number of working days after the end of the month before the publication of the Overseas Trade Accounts for the period January-April for 1963, 1964, and 1965, respectively.

Mr. Jay: Eighteen and a half, 18¼ and 21.

Mr. Biffen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figure of 21 refers to a period when these statistics were produced by a computer? Is it not extraordinary, not only that less information is available since these statistics were computerised, but that it takes longer to produce them? Incidentally, the trade figures are usually pretty indifferent, anyway.

Mr. Jay: I think that the hon. Gentleman is confusing two things. The provisional trade figures, which are usually popularly known as the trade figures, are now being published three days earlier than before and in much greater detail as a result of the installation of the computer.

Employment, South Wales

Mr. Abse: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the programme of advance factories announced to be built in South Wales and the present employment opportunities known to become available do not meet the need for employment caused by


changes in the mining and steel industries and what further action he intends taking to stimulate creation of the 65,000 new jobs required within the next five years.

Mr. Jay: The programme of seven advance factories of 130,000 sq. ft. which I announced on 9th May is only one of the measures being taken to create alternative employment opportunities in South Wales. I shall continue to use my powers under the Local Employment Acts to assist the provision of new employment in the area.

Mr. Abse: Is my right hon. Friend aware that well-informed opinion in South Wales believes that there is a yawning gap between the expected jobs as at this time, including those provided by the advance factories, and those coming into existence as a result of the drift from mining and the fact that we have a high-cost mining area threatened by low-cost fuel? Would my right hon. Friend give a clear pronouncement on what could be done?

Mr. Jay: I have gone into these facts and figures very closely on the spot, as my hon. Friend knows. I think that his anxieties are exaggerated, but if he should prove correct we shall take further action.

Mr. Bob Brown: In view of the fact that there are publicly-owned factories awaiting tenants, would not my right hon. Friend agree that it is high time that publicly-owned industries filled them?

Mr. Jay: There are, I am happy to say, very few factories awaiting tenants in South Wales or elsewhere.

Industrial Development Certificates, South Wales

Mr. Abse: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of present and projected decline in South Wales of employment in the mining and steel industries, he will now review the present practice of using industrial development certificates in order to ensure that their issue reflects the growing need in the area for job opportunities.

Mr. Jay: The needs of the areas affected by changes in the steel and coalmining industries are and will be taken

fully into account in administering the i.d.c control.

Mr. Abse: Will my right hon. Friend seek to use tougher measures in view of the apprehensions caused by the well-known over-manning of the steel industry and the fact that 14 per cent. of the employment in mining was lost in one year—last year?

Mr. Jay: The facts which my hon. Friend adduces are among the reasons why we have both extended the development areas in South Wales and announced a further advance factory programme.

Mr. E. Rowlands: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the present boundaries of the development area in South Wales and include possibly Cardiff and other potential growth points?

Mr. Jay: No. I think that the present boundaries are right—that is, the widened boundaries which we propose under the powers in the Industrial Development Bill.

South African Products (Preference)

Mr. Whitaker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will seek to withdraw Imperial preference benefits from the products of South Africa as soon as possible.

Mr. Jay: No, Sir.

Mr. Whitaker: Does not the Board of Trade think it disgraceful that a country which is continually violating our sanctions against Rhodesia continues to receive preference benefit whereas other countries which are observing them do not?

Mr. Jay: I do not think that it is for us to declare unilateral sanctions against South Africa.

Mr. Barber: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to increase trade between this country and South Africa as much as possible?

Mr. Jay: Yes, apart from the trade in armaments.

Mr. Rankin: Since South Africa is outside the Commonwealth, why should she enjoy Commonwealth preferences?

Mr. Jay: So are Burma and Ireland, and they enjoy them, too.

Dr. Gray: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many hon. Members on this side of the House think that the time has come to apply stronger pressures to South Africa in view of her support for the illegal Smith régime in Rhodesia?

Mr. Jay: That is a wider question than the question of preferences.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that South Africa is our fourth largest customer? Does he see our trade being such that South Africa will continue to be our fourth largest customer?

Mr. Jay: Certainly it is a large customer.

Mr. Henig: Would my right hon. Friend be prepared to have a thorough investigation made of the logic of Commonwealth preference in view of what he has just said about countries which are no longer members of the Commonwealth benefiting from that preference?

Mr. Jay: I have made such an investigation since I saw my hon. Friend's Question, but I am not satisfied that there is any need for change.

Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames (Offices)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now reconsider his refusal to allow the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames to achieve economies in administration by concentrating their offices at the Guildhall, Kingston-upon-Thames.

Mr. Jay: No, Sir. The need to limit office development in the London area is as great as ever.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the offices of a London borough must be in London? Is it fair to ratepayers to force a local authority to incur the extra expenditure involved both in dispersal and the renting of expensive accommodation merely because it suits Government policy?

Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have done my best to help him with several of his office cases. I am not convinced that a case has been made out here.

British Motor Corporation (Russian Trade Delegation)

Mr. Hattersley: asked the President of the Board of Trade what consultations he had with the British Motor Corporation in preparation for their meeting with the Russian trade delegation which visited the company to discuss the possibility of the British Motor Corporation participating in the development of the Soviet motor industry.

Mr. Mason: None, Sir.

Mr. Hattersley: Is not that an extraordinary state of affairs? Can the Minister of State say whether the omission is now being remedied in discussions between himself and B.M.C. in preparation for that firm's attempt to secure the next factory in the Russian car industry?

Mr. Mason: No industry is bound to consult my Department before receiving a delegation from any country, including the U.S.S.R. In this case the company acted, as it was entitled to do, entirely on its own initiative, although no doubt my hon. Friend noticed that I tried to help B.M.C. by raising this matter with the Soviet Prime Minister when I was in the U.S.S.R.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Derelict Land (Study)

Mr. Clifford Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if the Welsh Economic Council has completed its study of reclamation of derelict land in Wales; and when he will make the report available.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ifor Davies): This study has not yet been completed, and until I have seen a report, I cannot say whether or when it should be published.

Mr. Williams: I cannot be entirely satisfied with that reply by my hon. Friend. When the report is published will he take urgent action to implement its findings immediately?

Mr. Davies: I can assure my hon. Friend that when the report is received it will be given the fullest consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Pre-School Playgroups

Mr. Spriggs: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) if he is aware of the demand for places in the pre-school playgroups now operating; and whether he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to provide facilities and control of pre-school playgroups in England and Wales;
(2) how many local education authorities in England and Wales are now supporting pre-school playgroups; whether they are registered with the local authority or local education authority; and if he will seek power to bring them directly under the authority of the local education authority.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Edward Redhead): I am aware of the useful work which pre-school playgroups are doing for children below school age. Groups may need to be registered by the local health authority but do not come within the ambit of the local education authority. My right hon. Friend cannot reach any conclusion on the desirability of changing the law until he has received and studied the reports of the Central Advisory Councils for England and Wales.

Mr. Spriggs: May I ask my hon. Friend what other efforts are being made to get the information the Department requires before taking further action?

Mr. Redhead: This is being pursued by the advisory councils, whose reports we are awaiting.

Arts Council (Grant)

Mr. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the effect of the selective employment tax on the theatre, opera, ballet, orchestral and other organisations supported by the Arts Council, he will increase the Treasury grant to that Council so that those organisations will continue to receive the subsidies previously considered necessary.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): This is a matter which I am considering urgently.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Blackburn, to ask Question No. 67.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. Are no supplementary questions at all allowed on Question No. 64?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not usually call hon. Members to ask supplementary questions unless the hon. Member who asked the Question has asked a supplementary.

School Building Programme

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when the next school building programme will be announced.

Mr. Redhead: My right hon. Friend plans to announce the second part of the programme for 1967–68 before the end of June.

Mr. Blackburn: May I ask my hon. Friend to ask his right hon. Friend to inform all hon. Members of the projects which affect their constituencies, in order to prevent other hon. Members having to ask separate Questions?

Mr. Redhead: I will convey my hon. Friend's request to the Secretary of State.

Medical Schools

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many university medical schools were built in the past 10 years; and how many were built north of the Trent.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Goronwy Roberts): None, Sir.

Mr. Wainwright: Does my hon. Friend realise that there is a great demand for these medical schools up in the North? Will he give consideration to this?

Mr. Roberts: I shall take note of what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many students applied for a place in British medical schools in each of the past four years.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: This information is not available.

Mr. Wainwright: Will my hon. Friend seek to obtain this information and take into account the shortage of places for medical students, especially women? Are we not short of doctors in this country? Something should be done.

Mr. Roberts: During the period to which this Question relates not all medical schools belonged to the University Central Council on Admissions scheme. Therefore, it was not possible to compile full information about the numbers concerned. This year all medical schools which do not belong to the U.C.C.A. scheme have applications being made this autumn for admission in 1967.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: In view of the fact that this is very important information, could not the Secretary of State be persuaded to ask the medical schools to supply it?

Mr. Roberts: As I said, all medical schools which do not belong to the U.C.C.A. scheme have applications being made this autumn for admission in 1966–67.

Sir A. V. Harvey: In view of the large number of doctors leaving Britain every year, surely the Minister ought to have a stab at collating all these figures to ensure that the intake is sufficient, and that it is sufficiently attractive?

Mr. Roberts: That is the intention. That is why all medical schools will from this year on join the U.C.C.A. arrangements.

Oral Answers to Questions — NASSAU AGREEMENT

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy with regard to the renegotiation of the Nassau Agreement.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have nothing to add to the reply I gave on 12th May to a similar Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens).

Mr. Marten: Could the Prime Minister he quite frank with the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and say whether he really is still determined to push ahead with the policy of renegotiating the

Nassau Agreement and creating an Atlantic Nuclear Force, or are both these about to be thrown into the boiling pot? What advantage is there in renegotiating the Nassau Agreement except appeasing General de Gaulle or easing his way into the Common Market?

The Prime Minister: That is at least a new point for once. I will respond to the hon. Member and be frank, though, of course, if we get this Question once a week it is no wonder we do not reach other Questions; he keeps asking this, and I answered it the other day, and I have answered it several times. Of course we intend to renegotiate the Nassau Agreement as soon as we have reached agreement with our allies on the basis of settling the nuclear problem within N.A.T.O.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it a fact that the possibility of sending the British Polaris to the Indian Ocean is now being considered? Would not that mean committing British arms—and, indeed, nuclear arms—east of Suez in the 'seventies, which many of us are very eager to prevent?

The Prime Minister: No. There is no such arrangement before us at the present time. We have a problem to solve, as I am sure the whole House realises, and as I have said many times, of how we can give some collectivised nuclear guarantee to nations such as India against the new threat which they are facing, but it does not come under this, and we are not considering it in this way.

Lord Balniel: Does not the Prime Minister recollect that as recently as March this year he said that it was the Nassau Agreement which slammed the door on British entry into the Common Market? Does he consider this an impediment to Britain's entering the European Community and, if so, is he intending to renegotiate it?

The Prime Minister: I have never looked at this at all in connection with the Common Market.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—We have never looked at our approach to nuclear sharing in relation to the Common Market. We regard them as two separate issues. We are committed—and it is right—to seeing whether we can get a collectivised nuclear deterrent within N.A.T.O. Then, of course, the relevant parts of the Nassau Agreement


will have to be renegotiated. This we shall do.

Mr. Thomas Steele: Would the Prime Minister say on what basis he proposes to renegotiate the Nassau Agreement, in view of the fact that the Polaris programme itself is half-way completed? What other aspects have to be renegotiated?

The Prime Minister: There are two relevant parts of the Nassau Agreement. One of them was the clause which gave Britain the right, allegedly, to withdraw the deterrent when British interests were considered to be involved. This, we have always made clear, will require renegotiation when we have a collectivised deterrent. That is what we shall do.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Mr. Ian Lloyd: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the progress of the negotiations with Mr. Ian Smith.

The Prime Minister: The informal talks between officials are still in progress, and I have no statement to make at present.

Mr. Lloyd: While the House will respect the Prime Minister's taciturnity on this occasion, may I ask him to appreciate that his ability to escape his largely self-imposed dilemma in which he finds himself will largely depend on his giving a much fuller and franker disclosure of the real facts involved in this matter? In particular, will he tell the House, what he must know, of the extent of the material and financial aid to Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: There is no question of a self-imposed dilemma here, although some hon. Members opposite—unlike other hon. Members—have failed entirely to see the real issues involved here. They are burying their heads in the sand. There is a widespread understanding in the House that this matter is of the utmost world importance. We want to deal with the issue and to get an honourable settlement, otherwise our whole position in the world will be prejudiced. The hon. Member might not see this. We believe that we can do it better by not making a series of statements while the talks are going on.

Mr. Michael Foot: Will the Prime Minister indicate whether in these talks it has been possible to raise the question, strongly pressed at the last two Commonwealth Conferences, of the urgent need to release from imprisonment and detention people who are imprisoned without trial? Does he not think that the time is rapidly approaching when representatives of the majority of the people of Southern Rhodesia should be associated with these talks?

The Prime Minister: I think that it is too early to widen the basis of these talks. I am sorry that I cannot go beyond what I have said as to the content of the discussions. Before there can be any settlement, some very wide issues will be involved including, for example, everything involved in the fifth principle that the ultimate settlement must be one which is acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole.

Mr. Sandys: While fully supporting the view that it would be undesirable to make any statement at this stage, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he realises that the entire country devoutly hopes that these talks will be successful?

The Prime Minister: I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said in the opening to his question. I am sure that the entire country hopes that they will be successful on a basis which is acceptable to the whole House, namely, the five principles on which successive Governments have insisted.

Mr. Thorpe: In view of the fact that this Question refers to negotiations being currently carried on with Mr. Ian Smith, will the Prime Minister confirm that all that is taking place in fact is talks between officials to see whether there is a basis upon which talks might subsequently be held and in order to find out whether Mr. Smith is prepared to be more reasonable than he was before 11th November?

The Prime Minister: I noticed the prejudicial nature of the wording used in the Question, but I did not want to waste the time of the House by quarrelling with it. I dealt with the matter by saying that they were informal talks between officials, and their purpose is to see whether there is a basis for negotiations and with whom.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOWESTOFT HOSPITAL ACTION COMMITTEE (LETTER)

Mr. Prior: asked the Prime Minister when he received a letter from the Lowestoft Hospital Action Committee on the inadequacies of local maternity services; and what reply he proposes to send.

The Prime Minister: On 2nd May. I have sent the hon. Member a copy of the reply.

Mr. Prior: I am grateful to the Prime Minister for sending me a copy. In view of the very great local concern on this issue, will he ask the regional hospital board whether, if local people contribute 50 per cent. of the cost, the hospital board will contribute the other 50 per cent. to enable us to get on?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I know how concerned the hon. Member is about this. It is a matter for the Minister of Health and the regional board. I know that the big argument has been whether it should be in Yarmouth or Lowestoft, but when the hon. Member was sitting on this side of the House he said, reluctantly perhaps, that he was satisfied that the right place to build this hospital was in Yarmouth and not in Lowestoft.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY OF THE RHINE

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with President Johnson about negotiations with the Federal German Government and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation regarding the terms on which the British Army of the Rhine remains in Germany; and whether he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.

Mr. Dalyell: Have the negotiations on the foreign exchange costs of B.A.O.R. actually started—the negotiations which were promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add at this stage to the statement in the Defence White Paper and the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. So far there have not been any negotiations.
Answering the main Question, President Johnson has not been involved in any way.

Sir C. Osborne: Since N.A.T.O. came into being to safeguard Western Europe against a Stalinist expansionist policy, and since that policy has been dropped, ought not N.A.T.O. to be reconsidered entirely.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member is raising some very wide issues which have been debated many times and which have required full debate. There is a very serious situation going on in N.A.T.O. Of course we have said that we must take advantage of the fact which the hon. Member mentioned to modernise those aspects of N.A.T.O. which need modernisation and on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has made a number of proposals over the past year.

Oral Answers to Questions — THE QUEEN'S AWARD TO INDUSTRY

Mr. Barnett: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the criteria used for making awards to industry in respect of increased exports.

The Prime Minister: I would refer my hon. Friend to my statement of 3rd August last.

Mr. Barnett: Does not the Prime Minister agree that it is vital that the criteria are seen to be fair? Would he publicise them widely so that we do not jeopardise this vital scheme, which is proving so successful?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that this is a very important scheme. The criteria and all the details of the scheme were very widely publicised last summer when the Committee, presided over by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, reported. If it is necessary to give any more details to the Press and the public we shall be ready to consider doing so.

Mr. Bessell: Does the Prime Minister agree that, however valuable this scheme may be, it is vitally important to educate British exporters to the need to increase their export trade? What steps are the Government taking to this end?

The Prime Minister: Very full statements have been made about this. If the


hon. Member would like me to do so, I should be glad to send him a whole sheaf of copies of the Board of Trade Journal showing all the help which has been given in this direction. I refer him, in particular, to the speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in the Budget debate.

Mr. Maudling: Does this scheme apply to those export merchant houses which are affected by the new Selective Employment Tax?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman will revive his memory on this—I am sure that he studied the scheme when it came out—he will realise that it refers to the manufacturing firms and not to the merchant houses.

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Prime Minister how many firms in the South-West have received the Queen's Award to Industry; and how this compares with other areas.

The Prime Minister: Eight Award-winners are either based, or have their main factories in the South-West, while others have subsidiary factories there. It is not possible to make a true comparison between the regions because so many Award-winners operate in more than one region.

Mr. Mills: Does not this show what can be done in the South-West? Does not the Prime Minister agree that with better communications and roads we could even improve on this figure and so help our balance of payments? Will he have a word with the Minister of Transport to see that we are put higher on the list of priorities?

The Prime Minster: There is no doubt about what can be done in the South-West. I think that it is about 18 years since I opened an exhibition called "The Falmouth and West Cornwall can make it and can sell it exhibition"—so called for the sake of brevity. Many times since then I have seen great evidence, as have we all, of what can be done in that area. We are pressing on as fast as we can with the road building programme but communications are in no sense an impediment, still less should they be an alibi for failure on anyone's part not to make the maximum contribution to exports.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that in any negotiations concerning British entry into the European Economic Community a proposal for the association of the United Kingdom with a supranational Government in Europe and a European Parliament to which the Parliament in Westminster would be subordinated will be resisted.

The Prime Minister: There is no question of Her Majesty's Government in such negotiations entering into any arrangements which would involve a supranational Government or a Parliamentary assembly to which this House would be subordinated.

Mr. Shinwell: Would the Prime Minister be good enough to convey that Answer to some of my right hon. Friends in the Government who are making speeches, some of which frighten me?

The Prime Minister: While not questioning the capacity of my right hon. Friend for fright, I would make it absolutely plain to him that it is not necessary to circulate this to my right hon. Friends as none of them has made a speech even remotely suggesting that this was a possibility or that they had even thought that it was.

Mr. Strauss: Does not the Prime Minister agree that Parliament in fact limits its right to take unilateral action every time it joins an international organisation, as we did when we joined G.A.T.T. or when we became a member of the United Nations?

The Prime Minister: There is always a limitation on the right of the Government and to that extent of Parliament to act in certain directions unilaterally whenever they sign an international treaty. It is inevitable. I remember this being debated year after year when we were discussing the Common Market. But my right hon Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was concerned with the suggestion sometimes heard in Europe that joining the Economy Community, which is an economic organisation, automatically means a single foreign


policy, a single supranational Government in foreign affairs and defence matters and ultimately the disappearance of this Parliament in those matters. That is not, in my view or the view of any one of us, in question in any such negotiations.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Does not the Prime Minister agree that if the Treaty of Rome is signed in its existing form, Article 189 automatically involves a subordination of Parliament here to the regulations and directives of the Council or Commission over the whole wide range of economic and social matters which are within the ambit of the Community.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. and learned Gentleman had a Question down on that very point today and I was hoping to deal with it when we reached it. That point is very much in our minds. The right hon. and learned Gentleman now having reached it, I will say that we are studying very carefully what would be the implications both for Parliamentary procedure and of course for all questions of British lawmaking and judicial machinery arising from that Article. It requires close study. I believe that the previous Government had a working party on this subject under the then Lord Chancellor. I do not think that it finalised its inquiries. This is a very important question which needs working out before we get involved in any negotiations.

Mr. Henig: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people in Europe regard the supranational institutions of the Treaty of Rome as being the things which make the E.E.C. so important a departure in international affairs? Does he not think that it would be most unfortunate if the entry of this country into the E.E.C. were to damage these institutions, which are of so great and imaginative a conception?

The Prime Minister: Again, my hon. Friend has a Question on the Order Paper today, which may now not be reached. But, anticipating that Question, in my Answer I was dealing with supra-nationality or supranationalism in relation to foreign affairs, defence and the rights of this Parliament. Whatever some people in Europe may think, I am

sure that no hon. Member wants to see this House subordinated to an outside body or to see this country deprived of its independent foreign and defence policy. Within the Treaty of Rome—within the economic side with which it deals—there are certain commissions and other authorities. There is a big argument going on about this within the Community, and I have always taken the view that we should not, in Her Majesty's Government or in this House, take sides in that argument between the Six, who have not yet settled the argument.

Mr. Jennings: Do we take it that the Prime Minister's statement means that in the lifetime of this present Parliament we shall not, while negotiating on economic matters for union, now or then even negotiate for political union?

The Prime Minister: Political unity, and various proposals for greater political unity in Europe, is something which all of us would want to support. What we have always said is this. I remember that is used to be said in moving terms by the late Hugh Gaitskell that, in his view, this country is not ready, and would not be ready for at least 20 years, to consider any political arrangements, as opposed to economic arrangements—[Interruption.]—which would involve foreign policy and defence matters being settled over our heads by some supranational organisation, and I believe that this is still the case.

Mr. Bellenger: So that the House may understand on what basis negotiations are now going on by Her Majesty's Government, are we to understand from my right hon. Friend's reply which he has just given that all considerations of politics as embodied in the Treaty of Rome are out from the point of view of Her Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: In the first place, no negotiations are currently going on. I have announced exactly what is the position of our probings and discussions with individual countries, our hopes with E.F.T.A. and the E.E.C., but there are no such negotiations going on. In the Treaty of Rome, apart from the institutional arrangements needed to make effective the economic arrangements set out in that, there is, apart from a very short reference in the Preamble, no


political organisation affecting foreign policy or defence at all. It is an economic instrument with certain machiner for dealing with economic problems.

Mr. Pardoe: Is the Prime Minister aware that the best case for political unity in Europe was put forward in the pamphlet "Keep Left" written by hon Gentlemen opposite in 1947? Will the right hon. Gentleman bring that firmly to the attention of his hon. Friends and pledge his Government to build a United States of Europe governed by a directly elected supranational Parliament?

Hon. Members: No.

The Prime Minister: I do not think that any of my hon. Friends who are concerned with the preparation of that particular literary masterpiece or any of those who have been concerned with its successors, such as "One Way Only" and the rest, have ever felt that it was right to set up a directly elected assembly in the foreseeable future, within the next 20 or so years at any rate, to which this Parliament and this country would be subordinate. The economic negotiations are an entirely different matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Maudling: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Herbert Bowden): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 23RD MAY—Second Reading of the Docks and Harbours Bill.
Motions on the Ploughing Grants Schemes and the Fertilisers Scheme.
TUESDAY, 24TH MAY—Second Reading of the Ministry of Social Security Bill.
Remaining stages of the Post Office (Subway) Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 25TH MAY—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
THURSDAY, 26TH MAY—Second Read-of the Local Government Bill.
Motions on the Cereals (Amendment) Orders, and the Eggs (Amendment) Order.
It will be proposed that on Friday, 27th May, the House should rise for the Whitsun Adjournment until Monday, 13th June.

Mr. Maudling: I have four points to raise with the right hon. Gentleman. First, can he assure the House that, in case of need, the House could be recalled urgently during the Recess, should that be necessary?
Secondly, when will the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary make a statement on the negotiations or discussions with Spain about Gibraltar?
Thirdly, as we are having the Second Reading of the Finance Bill next week, when will the Ministry of Labour Bill be published and will the Chancellor of the Exchequer take responsibility for it as it is his policy?
Fourthly, in connection with South Arabia, as we regret that the Prime Minister has not made a statement on his recent Answer to Questions, will he take note that we will have to consider what further Parliamentary action we must take in this matter?

Mr. Bowden: The right hon. Gentleman will, of course, realise that Standing Orders exist for the recall of Parliament if that should be necessary during the Whitsun Recess. If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the possibility of a Proclamation under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, there is a requirement within that Act that regulations should be approved by both Houses of Parliament within seven days, which might have an effect on the Recess.
To answer his question about Spain, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary opened his discussions yesterday and I understand that certain documents have been laid in the Library. I cannot go beyond that.
The Ministry of Labour Bill will be available immediately after the Whitsun Recess and will be handled by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.
The Motion in the name of a number of Opposition back-bench Members on South Arabia—
[That this House regrets that, in his answers to Questions on 10th May, the Prime Minister failed to reveal that the Government of the Federation of South


Arabia had strongly protested against the British Government's decision to withdraw all protection in 1968, thus leaving the Federation virtually defenceless, and that they had accused Britain of dishonouring her word; and calls upon him to give an assurance that, if so requested by the Federal Government after the proposed new elections, Britain will be prepared to give to South Arabia the same assistance in its defence as she gives to several Arab states in the Persian Gulf.]
and the similar back-bench Motion in the names of a number of my hon. and right hon. Friends—
[That this House welcomes the statement of the South Arabian Government on Friday, 13th May, and the positive response of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; regrets the fact that on the eve of important talks on the future of South Arabia the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham should have sought to intervene in ways not conducive to a constructive settlement, and draws his attention to the fact that he is now not a Minister but a backbencher.]
have been signed by a large number of hon. Members, but being back-bench Motions, I cannot provide time for them.
The House may be interested to know that the Foreign Secretary dealt with this very fully on Monday of this week and that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister intends to take the opportunity of Questions next Tuesday to make the the whole position clcear.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend endeavour to provide some time for a debate to discuss Motion No. 62 which is concerned with rising prices and the seamen's dispute, as this is undoubtedly a matter of great urgency and concern to the people of the country?
[That this House, noting the sharp rise in certain retail prices since the inception of the seamen's strike, urges the Government to give evidence of its determination to operate a fair and just Prices and Incomes Policy by freezing all foodstuff prices for the duration of the present dispute.]

Mr. Bowden: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and

Food has already answered some Questions on this matter. I cannot go beyond that at this stage and promise time for a discussion before the Whitsun Recess.

Dame Irene Ward: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for time to be provided as soon as he can for a debate on Motion No. 59, in view of the importance of the Motion and the principle embodied in it?
[That, in the opinion of this House, the leader in The Journal, Newcastle-on-Tyne, on 9th March, 1966, headed "Split Personality", and which contained the following: "It is surely indiscreet of Mr. T. D. Smith to let his publicity firm accept paid employment from the Labour Party in this election campaign. As chairman of the Northern Economic Planning Coned he ought to keep himself above partisan politics apart from exercising his right to vote on polling day. Any national or regional body which is set up to serve the general public demands absolute impartiality from its office-holders. Mr. Smith may argue that he is strictly neutral when chairing the regional planning council but this is not enough in itself. If regional government is going to be effective it must be able to operate whichever party is in power at Westminster. In this it is on a par with such institutions as the National Coal Board and the Prices and Incomes Board", is an acceptable and essential basis for the establishment of any national or regional body; and this House therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to state its agreement with this principle and to take action to ensure now and for the future its adoption.]
If we cannot have a debate, could the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a statement to be made so that we may know exactly where we stand in regard to payments by the Labour Party to people having public positions in the Economic Planning Council in the north of England?

Mr. Bowden: I have seen the hon. Lady's Motion. Economic planning councils are advisory bodies, not executive bodies. The members of these councils are drawn from all walks of life, from trade unionists and members of all political parties. The public-spirited people who are asked to do this work would not readily undertake to do it if for this unpaid work they had to sacrifice


their normal commercial interests. I regret this Motion and the slur on the gentlemen who have performed a very useful public service.

Sir B. Janner: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider his decision on Motion No. 30—
[That this House urges Her Majesty's Government to amend the Race Relations Act 1965 to ensure that adequate powers are available to the law officers of the Crown to enable prosecutions to be instituted against organisations or persons inciting racial hatred.]
and the amendment of the Race Relations Act, 1965? Will he give an early opportunity for discussion of this Motion, particularly in view of the extremely serious consequences which flow from the indoctrination of Nazi ideas into the head, for example, of the murderer Brady, and the fact that this kind of indoctrination is spreading rapidly through the country and the Nazis are seeking every opportunity of spreading it? Will he give us a chance of discussing this matter with a view to amending the Act?

Mr. Bowden: As I promised, I have had talks from time to time with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General on this matter. There is no doubt about the law under the Race Relations Act, but other legislation is available which can be readily used to deal with arson or incitement to arson, which carries a penalty of up to life imprisonment. There are aspects of the Race Relations Act at which my right hon. and learned Friend is still looking.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Has the attention of the Leader of the House been drawn to Motion No. 41, standing in my name and the names of 224 of my hon. and right hon. Friends?
[That this House desires that charities should be relieved from paying the proposed Selective Employment Tax in respect of their employees.]
When will time be found for the House to discuss the very important matter of relieving charities from the effect of the Selective Employment Tax?

Mr. Bowden: This, of course, will be in order on the Finance Bill and on the Ministry of Labour Bill.

Mr. W. Baxter: May I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to Motion No. 56?
[That this House urges Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the appointment of an arms salesman.]
Can time be allocated to discuss it, because there seems to be a grave departure from the precedents of the House? It may be a breach of international agreement, especially G.A.T.T., to make such an arrangement as this.

Mr. Bowden: The Government appointment in connection with an arms salesman has been made absolutely clear, but if my hon. Friend or any hon. Member has specific points to raise on the question of armaments or the sale of armaments to a specific country, they should put down questions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.

Mr. Maudling: May I come back to the Finance Bill and the Ministry of Labour Bill because the position now revealed is profoundly unsatisfactory? We are to discuss the Finance Bill next week, but its merits will be bound up with the merits of the Ministry of Labour Bill. How can we discuss this matter without having the necessary material?

Mr. Bowden: We had exchanges on this question last week. While I was not able to promise that the Bills would be available at the same time for Second Readings, at least the Second Reading of the Ministry of Labour Bill and the Bill itself would be available to the House before the Committee stage of the Finance Bill.

Sir G. de Freitas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that nearly every one of the 18 Parliaments in the Council of Europe has regular debates on the work of the Council of Europe? Is it possible before the Summer Recess for us to have such a debate?

Mr. Bowden: Yes, Sir. I should have thought that could be on a general foreign affairs debate before the end of July. If it is necessary to find extra time for it, I will do so.

Mr. Barber: As the question of exempting charities from the Selective Employment Tax arises on the Ministry of Labour Bill, are we to take it that this


will not be handled by the Chancellor of the Exchequer but that he has washed his hands of it altogether?

Mr. Bowden: The Bill is being presented to the House by the Minister of Labour, but no doubt my right hon. Friends from the Treasury will be available during its passage.

Mr. van Straubenzee: In view of the fact that the Ministry of Labour Bill will not be available until after Whitsun and disabled persons have a problem in connection with the Selective Employment Tax, will the right hon. Gentleman not arrange for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a statement next week so that the gnawing anxiety hanging over disabled people may be removed?

Mr. Bowden: I shall see that the attention of my right hon. Friend is drawn to the point made by the hon. Member.

Mr. O'Malley: Will my right hon. Friend provide an early opportunity for discussing the general implications of the police amalgamation schemes announced by the Home Secretary yesterday?
Secondly, in view of the replies given yesterday by the Postmaster-General about pirate radio which many hon. Members found unsatisfactory, will the Leader of the House look again at the possibility of an early debate on broadcasting?

Mr. Bowden: A debate on the White Paper on broadcasting will follow, of course, after publication of the White Paper, but the White Paper is not yet ready.
On the question of the statement made yesterday by the Home Secretary about amalgamation of police forces, there is nothing I can say at the moment about a debate, but I shall certainly look at it.

Sir Frederic Bennett: Reverting to the question of Spain and Gibraltar, does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in answer to a Question by me pressing for a debate on this matter he said:
I will take note of that view and have a word with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary about this subject. I cannot promise a debate at the moment, but there is something to be looked at here."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th May. 1966; Vol. 728, c. 600.]
Does the right hon. Gentleman think that his answer today that there is something

in the Library is a fair result of that undertaking, in view of the concern felt throughout the whole House, which is growing rather than diminishing on this subject?

Mr. Bowden: Perhaps the hon. Member would prefer to look at what is in the Library, the statement by the Spanish Government and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's comments, before pressing for a debate.

Mr. Abse: Since it has been reported that all the necessary drafts have been ready for some time to amend the coercive Merchant Shipping Act, would that not be a wide step now, so as to demonstrate the concern of the Government with the injustice to seamen, that the Bill should be laid without any delay before the House?

Mr. Bowden: It is advisable to get agreement between both sides of industry before we proceed with legislation.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Can the right hon. Gentleman prevail on the Prime Minister to make his statement today instead of waiting until Tuesday, because the early-day Motions to some extent cast a shadow over his good faith and it is not a good thing that his high office should be left under that shadow in suspense for five days?

Mr. Bowden: I am not quite sure that that is the general opinion of hon. Members, but my right hon. Friend will make a statement on Tuesday.

Mr. William Hamilton: In view of what happened last night, will my right hon. Friend provide an early opportunity for debating the procedures of this House, particularly an amendment of Standing Order No. 31 which, if it had not been as it is, the events of last night could not have happened?

Mr. Bowden: The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) was, of course, well within his right in endeavouring to talk out a Bill, and he did it successfully. On the question of whether or not the Chairman of Ways and Means should be able to accept a Closure Motion, we might look at that in the Select Committee on Procedure.

Mr. Turton: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that if the Finance


Bill receives a Second Reading next Thursday the Second Reading of the Selective Employment Tax Bill will be taken before the Committee stage of the Finance Bill is taken?

Mr. Bowden: I should like to check that point. I am not absolutely sure, but I think that that is the position.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Is the Lord President of the Council aware that in many quarters of the House what he has said about the Race Relations Bill will be warmly welcomed and that we are looking forward to the time after Whitsun? Will he reserve days for amending legislation?

Mr. Bowden: I think that we had better first see what my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General finds in his investigation of the existing Race Relations Act, but the earlier points made about it have been cleared up and, as I said, there is some doubt about one part which he is looking at. If necessary, we shall discuss this again.

Mr. Kershaw: Referring to the events of last night, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance to the House that he will not allow his understandable chagrin to let him steamroller the rights of the Opposition or make unfair the rules of the House to cover his own incompetence?

Mr. Bowden: I have already said that the procedure last night was quite in order. The hon. Member for Ormskirk was quite in order in doing what he did. If the House wishes to look at the question of the Chairman of Ways and Means accepting a Closure Motion, we can do so.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Can my right hon. Friend say whether time can be allocated for a discussion of Welsh affairs, as there are a number of matters, particularly the question of transport and employment, which should be discussed at the earliest opportunity?

Mr. Bowden: There are the usual opportunities in the Welsh Grand Committee and the usual occasion on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Ridley: Will the Leader of the House give an assurance that, if any member of the Government is personally

criticised in a debate in the House, that Minister will come to the House to answer the debate?

Mr. Bowden: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman is getting at, but I will have a look at it and see what can be done.

Mr. Bessell: In view of the complexities of the Finance Bill, which has now been published, the considerable unrest which there is, which may or may not be justified, regarding the Selective Employment Tax, and the large legislative programme of the Government this Session, is it reasonable that there should be a 15-day Recess for Whitsun? Is this in keeping with modern, dynamic and progressive government?

Mr. Bowden: Without going beyond what I have already said, I do not think that it should be assumed for certain that it will be a 15-day Whitsun Recess.

Mr. Ioan L. Evans: Will the Leader of the House say when we can expect the Consumer Protection Bill? If the delay is due to the heavy legislative programme, is consideration to be given to meeting on Wednesday mornings?

Mr. Bowden: We shall have the Bill. I cannot firmly promise it for this Session. If there is time, we shall certainly have it. As I have said on many occasions, the question of morning sittings is now being considered by the Select Committee on Procedure.

Sir C. Osborne: In view of the very grave warning given last night by the Governor of the Bank of England—who knows the position better than anyone else in the country—about the perils of our present economic position, will the Leader of the House try to find time for a discussion of those issues, which it will not be possible to raise in the debate on the Finance Bill?

Mr. Bowden: The debate on the Budget Resolutions was also an economic debate. It took place over four days, as is usual. Such a discussion would not be out of order on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

Mr. Mayhew: Since we have not had the usual Service Estimates debates this year, what alternative arrangements will there be for surveying the work of the Armed Forces?

Mr. Bowden: The Services debate took place before the dissolution of Parliament, on a Defence Vote on Account. This was quite in accordance with our procedures. There will be further opportunities within the current Session of Parliament to discuss defence matters.

Mr. Worsley: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on E.L.D.O. to take place shortly after the Whitsun Recess so that the Government can make their position on this project clear, in view of its importance to our European policy?

Mr. Bowden: I cannot promise it at this stage, but no doubt we shall have to see how we get on between Whitsun and the end of July.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the appetising legislative morsel called the Finance Bill to be digested on the Floor of the House, or upstairs? Are we to have a repetition of what happened last year—long, interminable proceedings where groups of experts explain to each other small points while the rest of the Members are trying to sleep outside?

Mr. Bowden: I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend, but there will be no change in procedure this year.

Mr. John Wells: Will the Leader of the House seek to find time for the half day on canals that he promised he would look into last week?

Mr. Bowden: Yes, Sir. I have this very much in mind and will do my best to find time for this before the Summer Recess.

Mr. English: Now that the House of Commons Services Committee has been appointed, would my right hon. Friend consider referring to it the Motion standing upon the Order Paper in the names of several of my hon. Friends and myself referring to the responsibility of Officers of the House to that Committee or, during a dissolution, to my right hon. Friend?
[That this House considers that its officers ought at all times to be responsible to it through its Services Committee and in particular that, when the House

is dissolved, prorogued or adjourned, the Leader of the House, being a Minister in office and ex officio Chairman of that Committee, should be consulted by the officers of the House on matters of policy concerning its internal affairs.]

Mr. Bowden: Yes, this point will be before the Services Committee at its first meeting.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I was not quite sure that the Leader of the House appreciated the importance of the request for a debate on E.L.D.O. All sorts of rumours are going about that this very important European initiative might be dissolved. Would the right hon. Gentleman ask the Minister of Aviation if he could make an early statement, so that we can judge whether a debate may be necessary?

Mr. Bowden: I will certainly draw that to the attention of my right hon. Friend. As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, these discussions are proceeding.

Mr. Berry: Will the Leader of the House arrange to find time for the Prime Minister to make a statement next week giving his views on this Saturday's sporting events in the House rather than on B.B.C. television?

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: In view of the latest increase in mortgage rates resulting from the Government's policy, will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that he will endeavour to bring forward the Government's option mortgage Bill as a matter of priority, particularly as the Chancellor told us that this scheme was to be paid for by the betting tax?

Mr. Bowden: While not accepting the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, may I say that it would be in order to discuss part of this in today's debate.

Mr. Jennings: Will the Leader of the House try to find time for a separate debate before the Summer Recess on the whole question of disabled persons?

Mr. Bowden: I cannot promise time, but there are seven Supply days available between now and the end of July, one of which could be used.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY (900th ANNIVERSARY SERVICE)

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey have suggested that during the 900th anniversary year of the Abbey there should be a service attended by Members, officers and staff of the two Houses of Parliament.
The Government are anxious to meet their wishes in this respect, and it is, therefore, proposed that the House of Commons should go as a House to Westminster Abbey at 12 noon on Wednesday, 29th June, to attend such a service. It is understood that the House of Lords will also be present at the Service.
It is proposed that the House should meet for Prayers at 11 a.m. and that the sitting should then be suspended to enable Members to take their places in the North Transept of the Abbey. Shortly before 12 noon, Mr. Speaker's Procession will leave the Chamber for the Abbey, followed by right hon. and hon. Members from the two Front Benches.
After the service, the House will return and the sitting will be resumed at 2.30 p.m.

G.L.C. (GENERAL POWERS) BILL

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On a point of order of which I have already given you prior notice, Mr. Speaker.
Have you now considered the position arising out of the undertaking given to me by the Parliamentary Agents on behalf of the promoters of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Bill with respect to Clause 24 of that Measure, the papers in respect of which I submitted to you?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for giving me notice that he wanted to raise what appeared

to him to be an unauthorised departure from the practice of the House.
The House will recall that the Second Reading of the Bill was agreed to without a Division on 2nd May last. I understand that a few days before that debate the Agents for the promoters of the Bill gave the right hon. Gentleman an assurance which led him and other Members not to press their opposition to the Bill on Second Reading. Later, it appeared that the assurance might not be carried out.
Such a withdrawal of an assurance which has been accepted and acted upon by hon. Members would not be consistent with the practice of the House in matters affecting Private Bills. The progress of private legislation in this House is the direct concern of the Chairman of Ways and Means and I have learned from him that he is taking steps to ensure that the practice of the House is observed and that the assurance given by Parliamentary Agents to the right hon. Member will be honoured.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Mr. Speaker, may I thank you for the consideration you have given to this matter and for the Ruling itself, which seems to me, if I may respectfully say so, to be of general importance.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Mr. Speaker: I wish to make a personal statement.
Last night I ought to have been in my place to take the vote on the Second Reading of the Transport Finances Bill. During the evening I was entertaining on behalf of the House a delegation of French Parliamentarians. This function went on a quarter of an hour longer than was planned. If I had left it punctually, it would have involved me in leaving during the speech of thanks of a distinguished French guest. Because of this, I arrived in the Chair after the Closure had been sought unsuccessfully.
The responsibility for the present situation is entirely mine, and I wish to express my deep and sincere regret to both sides of the House for my late return last night.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I wrote asking your permission to put a Private Notice Question to the President of the Board of Trade concerning shipping matters and the seamen's strike, notice of which I also gave to the President of the Board of Trade. He was aware that I intended to put that Question today, but you have not called me to put the Question and, with respect, I would like to know why.

Mr. Speaker: I am not quite sure what point the hon. and learned Gentleman is on. He asked leave to put a Private Notice Question today. I refused him leave. That refusal of Mr. Speaker cannot be challenged at all. Is there some other point?
I hope that that is clear. The hon. and learned Gentleman seems to hesitate, and I want to help him.

Mr. Hughes: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of your refusal. I received no refusal from you. May I suggest respectfully that it is the inherent right of an hon. Member of the House to put a Private Notice Question, with your permission, to a Minister of the Crown, particularly one relating to so urgent and important a matter as the shipping strike.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot mention the subject of the Private Notice Question. I understand now the point that he is on. If the hon. and learned Gentleman was not told that his Private Notice Question was disallowed, I want to apologise for my Department. He should have been informed. But the right of Mr. Speaker either to permit or not permit a Private

Notice Question is a right which the House has given to Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Hughes: Mr. Speaker, having regard to what you have just said, may I, with the greatest respect, ask if you will allow me to put that Private Notice Question some day next week? I respectfully request that you allow me to put the Question.

Mr. Speaker: All that I can say to the hon. and learned Gentleman is that he can make application to put a Private Notice Question at any time, but no Speaker will promise, ahead of time, that he is prepared to allow an hon. Member to put a Private Notice Question. If the hon. and learned Gentleman puts one in, I will consider it.

BILL PRESENTED

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND)

Bill to make further provision, in relation to Scotland with respect to the payment of grants to local authorities, valuation and rating, local authority expenditure and the classification and lighting of highways; to repeal or amend certain enactments relating to local licences and registrations; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid; presented by Mr. William Ross; supported by Dr. J. Dickson Mabon and Mr. Niall MacDermot; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 23.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Harper.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[1ST ALLOTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir ERIC FLETCHER in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — CIVIL ESTIMATES 1966–67

CLASS VI

VOTE 1. MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £34,977,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1967, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; grants and expenses in connection with water supply, sewerage, coast protection, abating the pollution of the air, planning and redevelopment, new towns, areas of outstanding natural beauty, rating relief, rate rebates and sundry other services; a subscription to an international organisaticn and grants in aid.—[£8,834,000 has been voted on account.]

Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Harper],—put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING AND BUILDING POLICIES

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Rippon: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the failure of Her Majesty's Government's housing and building policies.
I ought, first, to declare an indirect interest in the subject under discussion as I am a director of a building company. I suppose that I might be said to have another and perhaps conflicting interest in the Government's policies, legislation and administration, since they offer the prospect of almost infinite employment to the legal profession. Above all, I have a fundamental interest, which I think is shared by the House, in seeking to prevent the steady deterioration and destruction by the Government of the

progressive policies and programmes which they inherited from their Conservative predecessors.
The pre-election promises and pledges of the party opposite on housing and on interest rates were a classic example of the exercise of "Anything you can do, we can do better". Local authority tenants and owner-occupiers were going to benefit from controls on so-called inessential building. More houses were to be built for sale and to let. Interest rates were to be cut. Land was to be cheaper, and mortgages provided on more favourable terms.
In that connection and on one particular point which is perhaps topical today, it may be that the Minister of Housing and Local Government will be able to tell us whether he intends to refer the Greater London Council's policy of an interest rate on new loans of 7⅛ per cent. to the Prices and Incomes Board.
In speech after speech, the Prime Minister has spoken of going into battle on the housing front. In his election address in October, 1964, he wrote:
We have pledged ourselves to tackle the housing problem like a war-time operation.
In that characteristic, blunt, straightforward way that is peculiarly his own, he added on another occasion that it was a problem
…which brooks no escape or evasion.
That was good, purposive, gritty stuff! Since then, all that we have had is a "phoney" war, and, if I may say so, the Prime Minister and his colleagues seem to do all their shooting from the lip.
So far from getting more houses, there has been a steady deterioration where there should have been a steady improvement. There were 434,000 houses under construction when the Labour Government came into office. It required generalship of a pretty special order to fail to complete even 400,000 houses in 1965. There was every reason to believe that the figure would have been much nearer 420,000. Instead, as we now know, the figure completed was only 382,000. I think that 1966 is seeing a further retreat from the Prime Minister's own chosen battlefield. March of this year was the fifth consecutive month and the seventh month out of the last eight in which the number of houses completed was actually less than in the equivalent


month of the previous year. The Minister of Housing, left to conduct his tactical exercise without houses, has done his best to throw up a smokescreen. During the debate on the Gracious Speech on 28th April, the right hon. Gentleman, in anticipation of the figures due to come out on 3rd May, said:
The March figures are much better than the February figures."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1966; Vol. 727, c. 981.]
I think it came as a surprise to almost everybody to find that when they were published they were down yet again. They were down by 950 compared with March, 1965.
What I think is even more significant is that both completions and starts have fallen in the first three months of this year. It may be felt by the House that the figures for houses started are a particularly gloomy augury for the future. Only 392,507 were started in Great Britain in 1965—not, of course, Northern Ireland—compared with 426,075 in 1964.
Now we find that 13,265 fewer houses were started in the first quarter of 1966 than in the first quarter of 1965 and, perhaps even more fantastically in view of the Government's election pledges and promises, 16,276 fewer houses were started in the first quarter of this year than in the first quarter of 1964, so instead of going forward we are going steadily backwards.
Of course, it is the private sector which has been hardest hit, with 11,482 fewer houses started this year than in the first quarter of 1965, but the public sector is also sagging badly. Starts in the public sector were 1,773 down in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and 6,770 down compared with the same period in 1964.
I think that those figures put a little more clearly into perspective the Minister's somewhat disingenuous statement on 28th April that
in the public sector…despite the weather, starts are only 1,000 down in these three months."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1965; Vol. 727, c. 981.]

Mr. Eric Lubbock: I do not quarrel with any of the right hon. Gentleman's figures, but should not he also take into account the number of

houses under tenders approved but not started at the end of the periods to which he is referring? Is he aware that since the March quarter of 1965 this number increased from 69,000 to 81,000 in local authority housing?

Mr. Rippon: I think that it is important to judge by results. There are all sorts of figures in local authority programmes. Houses may be under tender, but if they are not started one cannot be sure when they will be.
We now have a situation which caused the Sunday Times to report on 8th May:
The Government is now prepared for the prospect that it will again this year fail to reach its target of 400,000 a year, and could even fall below last year's total of 391,000.
I am afraid that that shows that some people are still being misled by the Socialist election propaganda which included figures for Northern Ireland. The figure should be 382,000.
But even if the figures for completions and starts, having regard to matters such as programmes and tenders started, show some improvement—as they certainly ought to do in the coming months—this, over a period of nearly two years, is a dreadful record for a Government who inherited not only firm, long-term programmes, but also a progressively productive construction industry.
Over the period 1959–64 the output of new construction work generally rose in real terms at an average annual rate of 7 per cent. It is a measure of the failure of the Government's policies that last year the figure was only 2·5 per cent., well below the achievement under a Conservative Government, and well below what is required to achieve 500,000 houses a year by 1970, plus the rest of the nation's essential building needs.
As the House will have noted, the debate today is not limited to housing, although this is perhaps the most dramatic of the Government's failures. But, of course, the Government's failures extend in general over the whole building field. We used to be told that to expand housing and education and hospital building it was necessary to hold back what the party opposite always described as less essential building and to impose physical controls. I remember the warning which I gave on 18th March, 1964:
It should be clearly understood that there is no reason to suppose that the imposition of


controls over what is called less essential building would do anything but harm."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1964; Vol. 691, c. 1508.]
And I explained why at some length. Now, once again, we have the physical controls which failed so dismally before. But we do not have more houses, and we do not have more hospitals, or more university building. It is only the number of official residences for Ministers which is rising, and I suppose that today we ought to congratulate the Secretary of State for Scotland on entering his new official residence.
We do not hear much about hospital building. Here we have a blanket of silence. All we know, according to information which was given to the House in a Written Answer on 13th December last, is that 25 major hospital building projects costing in total about £25 million were deferred from the 1965–66 programme, and that only 19 projects costing in total £15 million have been put back in their place. No doubt we shall be told if there has been a sudden spurt in starts.
I think that I can give an example of what has been happening. Let us consider St. Thomas's Hospital. A Conservative Government sanctioned £15 million for rebuilding, but the Socialist Government first stopped rebuilding altogether. There was then some bargaining, after which the Government gave permission to spend £13¼ million, but the Treasury was prepared to provide only £11¼ million. The other £2 million has to be found out of research funds, research of the kind that keeps doctors in this country and helps to stop the brain drain which used to cause Socialists so much concern when they were in Opposition. So much for the Prime Minister's talk of
forging the New Britain in the white heat of scientific revolution.
Let me consider next university building. Clearly this has been cut back by the Government. For 1965–66 a Conservative Government planned that £54½ million of university building would be started. The present Government cut this by about £15 million, or more than a quarter, when, in July of last year, a six months' deferment was imposed on university projects. As the Principal of London University, Sir Douglas Logan, says in his Report for 1965–66 which has

just been published, in words which pick up the Prime Minister's battle theme:
It is difficult to convey to those who were not right in the firing line the administrative chaos which ensued",
and he cites as an example that it took five months to get exemption from the standstill order for the halls of residence which were being financed by an anonymous donor as far as building costs were concerned.
Sir Douglas Logan went on to say:
I feared the worst from the outset. 'Deferment' could mean deferment only if the building allocations for 1966ߝ67 and subsequent years were at least as large as that for 1965–66 whereas in fact they were substantially less. The reply of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to a question in the House of Commons last December was reported by a leading newspaper under the heading, 'More building for universities'. The newspaper's misinterpretation of the position is perfectly understandable, because the Minister simply announced an increase of £7 million in the programme for 1966–67 and one of £5 million for 1967–68 without revealing that the effect of the deferment was that the university building programme had been cut by £15 million.
But, of course, the truth on these matters cannot be hidden for ever. it is becoming more and more widely appreciated that the loss to the universities is even greater than revealed by crude statistics. First, it must be remembered, as Sir Douglas Logan points out, that the Conservative Government stated that the 1967–68 figure was to be provisional and subject to review, but only in an upward direction. Secondly, not only has the time lost been lost for ever, but the rise in building costs since the allocations for 1965–69 were originally announced is estimated to be about £4 million. So that the universities, therefore, are millions of £s short of the capital provision that the Conservative Government thought necessary to meet the Robbins expansion programme.
I think that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) will accept that nobody thought that we had made too generous a provision. We, too, had our battles with the Treasury, but I think that we were not quite so savagely battered as the present Ministers responsible for the nation's building programme seem to have been.
Further education projects to the value of £9 million which the Conservatives


planned to start between August, 1965 and January, 1966 were deferred. This year's programme has not been increased to take account of that fact. It is the same story with colleges of education for teacher training. There was a cut of £5 million on building work from last year's programme.
The school-building programme was announced with a great fanfare by the Government on 4th March. On the face of it, the figures show a natural increase taking place year by year. The Labour manifesto boasted of carrying out the largest school-building programme in our history, but analysis of the figures shows here again that the normal building programme will be no more in four years' time than it is now. In reality, it will be substantially less because of the rise in building costs.
The current costs per place for new primary and secondary schools are now £230 and £435, respectively, compared with £189 and £336 in the first half of 1965, so it is no wonder that The Times Educational Supplement commented on 11th March:
The figures for the school-building programme over the next five years make a mockery of the pledges that the Secretary of State for Education and the Labour Party have given over the raising of the school leaving age, secondary reorganisation and the rebuilding of primary schools.
No doubt hon. Members opposite blame economic difficulty, and remember that the present Foreign Secretary had this to say in November, 1963, when he was responsible for these matters on behalf of the then Opposition:
…if the industry is to do the job required of it, it must have confidence that there is not only a large programme, but that it will be a steady programme which will not be chopped down every time the Government run into some kind of financial difficulty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 18th November, 1963; Vol. 684. c. 638.]
He also had a lot to say about the high proportion interest rates represented in the cost of houses and the cost to local authorities of keeping them available.
As fast as these essential building programmes have been cut, so, as I have indicated, the costs have risen. The latest statistics supplied by the Ministry of Public Building and Works show that the prices of new houses rose by 10 per cent. in 1965, the greatest amount since

records were kept. So much for the Prime Minister's statement at Stevenage on 16th September, 1964, that, "We shall cheapen the cost of housing by our interest rate policy". I should like to suggest that when it comes to the next General Election we shall not have a poster of the Prime Minister complacently smoking his pipe and saying, "You all know Labour Government works". What we may have is a poster saying, "Trust Jim. We all know that you can work for a Labour Government". There will be a little sub-heading, "From each according to his means".
Meanwhile, to the highest interest rate for the longest period in our history must now be added the Selective Employment Tax. I will not argue that today. Indeed, I think, Mr. Speaker, that I must not talk about the damaging effect of this discriminatory burden on the building industry generally. We shall have other opportunities to do that. I only ask the House to note the Written Reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to a Question on 17th May, on Tuesday, when he said that the Selective Employment Tax would add about 2 per cent. to the cost of the average house. That is about £70 to £80. So it goes on, with the basic cost of housing rising steadily and the interest rate remaining at a level which the Socialists certainly did not advocate when they were in Opposition.
The housing and building policies of the Government are now in ruins, and the House must consider this afternoon what has gone wrong and what can be done to put it right. In my submission, the Government have gone wrong because they have made a series of fundamental errors in policy. First of all, they have got the machinery of Government wrong. Secondly, they are not exercising their existing powers properly and efficiently. Thirdly, they do not understand either the purpose or the exercise of power in a free society. The Prime Minister has talked a lot about streamlining the Administration. It all sounds wonderful. But all we have got is more Ministers than ever before in our history and an increase of over 10,000 in the number of civil servants.
When he took office the Prime Minister, almost without pausing for breath, added


the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources to the list of Departments. Having appointed the Minister and his staff, he denied them the planning powers which were the only justification for their existence. At the same time, he left the Ministry of Public Building and Works with wide responsibilities for the construction industries, for the Government's own building programme, for the co-ordination of research and development throughout Government services and inevitably with a considerable say in the allocation of resources for all these purposes.
Instead of making the Ministry of Public Building and Works a spearhead of his "war-time" building operation, he left the Minister outside the Cabinet. He had not even the excuse that he was streamlining the Cabinet. He put in it two Ministers where one had done for us to deal with the Commonwealth and the Colonies, and in spite of his previous criticism that 23 was too large a Cabinet. To keep the two Ministers occupied he set one the futile task of preparing the Land Commission Bill and gave the other the job of trying to investigate the responsibilities of the Lord Great Chamberlain.
Now he is carrying out another reorganisation, and he is getting it wrong again. Having admitted his mistake in establishing the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources without responsibility for planning and land use, he is now smashing the machinery for ensuring that the construction industries, which stand right at the very centre of economic growth, can expand their output to meet the needs of building of all kinds, not just for housing but for both social and economic purposes. I can think of nothing more likely to impede progress than the fragmentation of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Public Building and Works and the overloading of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, which is already the weakest link in the whole chain. The only cause for any satisfaction is that the Prime Minister has so far resiled—he does this frequently but usually not very graciously—from his earlier public statements as to leave the Ministry of Public Building and Works with general responsibilities for the construction industry.
But it is hardly conducive to confidence in these industries for him to say,

as he did on Tuesday, that this decision is "probably right but only just". How could he imagine that responsibility for the construction industry could be tucked away in some corner of the Ministry of Housing, cheek by jowel, perhaps, with water and sewerage and all the other responsibilities of the Minister. This is a group of industries which employs one in twelve of the working population, and is responsible for executing over 50 per cent. of the nation's capital investment. I would much rather that the right hon. Gentleman gave some attention, particularly in my constituency, to improving water and sewerage supplies. These are the real subjects and the ones which might give most immediate benefit to many people.
My second criticism is that the Government do not exercise their existing powers properly or effectively, and this applies with particular force to the Minister of Housing. We had something to say about this in the House last Thursday, and I do not think that I need add much to that. The Minister of Housing has so snarled up his Ministry already that essential land for building is coming forward too slowly, town centre and other development is breaking down and delays in reaching decisions on planning appeals are growing longer all the time. The Minister has himself admitted in the House that it takes on average 44 weeks now between the holding of an ordinary planning inquiry and the Ministerial decision, compared with 32 weeks a year ago.
The decision to transfer the National Building Agency to the Minister of Housing is a particularly retrograde and deplorable action. It was never set up, nor should it ever be used, simply to assess and promote industrialised housing programmes for local authorities. It has responsibilities as an independent agency serving both public and private enterprise over the whole field of building, as set out in its articles of association. When the Conservative Government reorganised the Ministry of Works and set up the National Building Agency, we published two White Papers, Cmnd. 2233 and Cmnd. 2288—which were presented to the House in December, 1963, and were generally accepted by both sides.
I hope that the Government will now publish a White Paper on the reorganisation of the Ministry of Housing, explaining why they have made these new changes and also how they brought them about. An article published yesterday in The Times indicates that there is considerable cause for public anxiety about what has been happening. It says that not only is the transfer of the National Building Agency to the Ministry of Housing regrettable in itself, but it adds:
Still more disturbing is the means by which it has been brought about. Both Ministries and the Agency have preserved official silence during the fighting, but there is evidence that the takeover has been achieved covertly and by methods which must rarely have been used within a public body.
These allegations are serious and they must be answered.
Apart from the skullduggery which has gone on in the Whitehall war—no doubt more important to hon. Members opposite than the housing war—there is what I can endorse as an accurate statement in The Times:
When the National Building Agency was created by the Ministry of Public Building and Works, its independence as a company limited by guarantee and free from Government interference was paramount.
It was, indeed, the essential condition on which the confidence of the industry, the associated professions and the local authorities was based.
Here I come to the third and, in many ways, perhaps the most fundamental criticism of the Government and their policies—

Mr. Charles Pannell: When talking about the National Building Agency, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will appreciate that it was inherently right for the Minister to give it directions from time to time.

Mr. Rippon: But in the articles of association it was also inherent that it should have an independent status and that directions should be given in an open and clear manner.
My third fundamental criticism of the Government is that they do not understand the purposes of the exercise of power in a free society. In the debate on the Gracious Speech, the Minister of Housing said that it had required the

massive intervention of public authority to assess industrialised systems, to organise local authority demand and to achieve the full potential of industrialised building. He is quite wrong about this. What is needed and what the Conservative Government did is, as we said in the White Paper on the Reorganisation of the Ministry of Works, to understand that the scale on which modernisation is required is so large and so complex that a strong lead from the centre is required. There is a very great deal of difference—even if right hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot understand it—between massive intervention from the centre and giving a lead.
What was required and what is still required is a revolution by consent—not with the big stick, but with the co-operation of the construction industries, the associated professions and the local authorities. The Government cannot produce houses. They cannot produce any of these buildings. What they can do is create the conditions in which other people may carry out their job more efficiently and effectively. The key to that is continuity of demand on the one hand and the maintenance of confidence on the other.
In the next ten years, we must build not only millions of houses, many universities, colleges, schools, hospitals and all the other public buildings: we have also to invest on a large scale in new factories, roads, power stations, port installations and the rest. To meet all this, the output of the construction industries must rise by at least 50 per cent. in the next decade, and we cannot do that at last year's rate of a 2½ per cent. increase.
If this achievement is to be possible, there must be continuity of demand to justify investment on the necessary scale. It is the tragedy of what has happened in the last year and a half—the Government's failure to keep all these programmes moving forward and all the time talking about how near they are getting to maintaining the old level—that they have undermined confidence and impeded co-operation. We have a further concentration of power in the hands of a Minister who said on one occasion during the debate on the Gracious Speech that he was "alarmed" about the slow rate of completions of council houses and on another that he was "puzzled".
On private housing, he said:
… the puzzle is why, when there are masses of money available and when the bricks are available and the skilled labour is available, the builders cannot or do not complete the houses."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 28th April, 1966; Vol. 727, c. 984.]
But what is a puzzlement to the Minister is part of the reason why the present situation is so bad. It may puzzle the Minister but the causes are not far to seek. The builders have had their confidence undermined by the Land Commission Bill, and by the Building Control Bill, by the extension of direct labour, by arbitrary cut-backs in already announced building programmes and, no less significant, by the restriction on bank advances. I hope for the benefit of all of us and not just for that of the builders, that the Minister of Housing will tell us where we can get masses of money at present. If he can get the money, why does he not start and get some out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
The Minister gave an interview in the Daily Mirror on Tuesday under the heading of "My big problems". He is quoted in it as saying:
If you ask what is restraining the enthusiasm of the small builders I would say that one thing is lack of confidence"—
so he admits it himself. He says at the end:
Psychologically, this is a terribly difficult year for the small builder.'
It is not psychologically difficult: it is actually difficult.
The Minister may remain alone in his puzzlement, but increasingly the whole nation will share his alarm at what is happening. The Socialist housing and building programmes meet neither the challenge of today nor the infinite possibilities of tomorrow. Of course, the party opposite are very familiar with failure, for they have had it so often. They know all the tricks of the trade, the sly ways of not admitting failure, and the methods by which they try to blame somebody else. But they are running out of alibis. They are failing now, and they will continue to fail, as they failed in 1931 and in 1951, because they always combine a fatal combination of fallacious doctrine and administrative incompetence.

4.38 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Richard Crossman): In reply to the speech of the right hon. and

learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon), who moved the Motion of censure, I will try to distinguish between the parts which were specifically those of the right hon. and learned Gentleman about Whitehall, and the more general parts, in which he almost repeated point by point the attack made by the Leader of the Opposition in a speech at Perth at the weekend.
The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham is concerned partly with the reorganisation of Whitehall, and partly with what he calls the criticism of the Government's exercise of power. He has accused my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of smashing up the Ministry of Public Building and Works, I do not think he will find that is true, and I think that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works will have something to say about that later in the debate. What my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has done is to leave the Ministry in charge, as sponsor, of the construction industry, and to allocate to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government a number of items in the Ministry which are essential to the housing programme. I shall have something to say later about the N.B.A. and about what we hope it will do when it comes to us.
In the article to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred, the sentence about himself may have been true, but as far as I know that was the only true sentence in a vindictive article of innuendo and lies, and which the newspaper should have been ashamed to print. I agree with his remarks about power in a free society. He said that we needed a revolution by consent and that we have to persuade people to move into the twentieth century. There, I entirely agree. What we are discussing is how we are to do it.
I turn to what the Leader of the Opposition said at Perth. His charge against us in housing—and I shall concentrate entirely on housing—is that we failed, according to the Conservatives, by five tests which I shall take one by one. They are that we failed by the rate of house building; the level of mortgage rates; the supply of land—one thing which he did not mention, but which his right hon. Friend mentions regularly is the problem of local authority rents; and that we


Failed, according to him, on the satisfaction of demand for owner-occupation.
I shall deal with these points one by one and shall, in the course of doing so, try to provide the latest—April—figures. Although I apologise to the House for wearying it with statistics, I cannot avoid some figures in view of the speech to which we have just listened and the charges made at the weekend. I am bound to quote figures to try to correct the impression that hon. Members opposite systematically try to make, that there has been a sensational drop in house production since they left office.
The Leader of the Opposition began his speech at Perth with the blank assertion that we have failed to keep up the rate of house building reached under the Tories. The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham repeated that assertion this afternoon. Of course, they both know that this is untrue. Let us look at the figures again to see whether it is true that there has been a sensational drop in the rate of house building which the Tories achieved in 1964. In that year the rate of house building was 374,000 houses a year, and I give them credit for that. It was the best ever achieved in British history to that date.
In view of the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) I have left out the figures for Northern Ireland but I am in some embarrassment, for we shall have a summing up speech for the Opposition by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) and I do not want to be ungenerous to him in leaving out the figures for Ulster from the total. Since, however, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames wishes me to do this, his hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry will not think me discourteous for leaving out the Northern Ireland houses, since they are only a negligible addition to the total.
Three hundred and seventy-four thousand houses was the biggest number built. That was the rate for 1964. In 1965, the rate was 382,000 a year. I said at the time that I did not boast of the rate being higher, but it is outrageous to go round asserting that the rate is lower when, in fact, it is higher.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: Will the Minister recall that my quarrel with him about Northern Ireland was in no way to under-rate the importance of building in Northern Ireland, but because the Northern Ireland figure was included in a document headed "Labour builds 391,000 houses" when, as the right hon. Gentleman may be aware, the Government of Northern Ireland is not, and never has been, a Labour Government.

Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman has sustained his point. I wanted to assure him that I was showing no discourtesy, in giving the total figures, in meeting his objection concerning Northern Ireland. Having got the rate tested by the actual rate of house building, and having seen that despite these astonishing remarks the fact is that we are building now at a rate greater than ever before in history, we will take the second test of houses under construction. At the end of 1964 the number of houses under construction was 434,000, and at the end of 1965 it was 444,000. Therefore the numbers under construction remained almost exactly the same during that period, or, rather, increased by 10,000. I do not claim credit for this. I think that the number under construction may be a sign that too much capital and labour were locked up. The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham knows this quite well, because that was the number that he had when he left office. More houses are completed each year under this Government and more houses are under construction than under any previous Administration. By any test that the right hon. and learned Gentleman may choose to select, the annual rate of house building has not fallen. Since a deliberate effort is being made to give a different impression, one is bound to record the truth in this fact.
I should like to turn to another deliberate falsification made by the Leader of the Opposition, although it was not repeated this afternoon. He said in his speech at Perth:
Where we"—
that is, the Conservatives—
encouraged home ownership, Labour has deliberately turned against it. Local authority mortgages have been cut off.
These are remarks by a responsible Member of Parliament, the Leader of


the Opposition. He must know that that is a deliberate fabrication. It is an invention and is simply not true. Let us look at the figures for local authority mortgages. In 1963 the local authorities advanced £104 million; in 1964 £166 million; and in 1965 they advanced £208 million, and most of this was in the third and fourth quarters of the year after the so-called moment when the local authority mortgages were completely cut off.

Mr. Rippon: Could the Minister give figures of the numbers of people to whom those advances were made, because one has to take into account rising costs?

Mr. Crossman: We now have an interesting modification, because the statement was that we had cut off local authority mortgages because we hated the owner-occupier. Both are lies, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows quite well that these are deliberate lies to create an impression.

Mr. Quintin Hogg (St. Marylebone): On a point of order. I had always understood that for one hon. Member or right hon. Member to use the word "lies" of another hon. Member or right hon. Member was unparliamentary. May I have your Ruling on this, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): It is unparliamentary for one hon. Member to accuse another of lying.

Mr. Crossman: I accept that and I substitute the word "fabrication".

Mr. Hogg: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has twiced used the word "fabrication", once in connection with the word "deliberate". I understood that the tradition and usage of this House was that allegations of deliberate fabrication or falsification were just as bad as the use of the unparliamentary term "lies".

Mr. Crossman: Before you give your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am willing to substitute—

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Crossman: I am on the point of order

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that the Minister is addressing me on the same

point of order as was raised by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). I want to hear the Minister before I give my Ruling.

Mr. Crossman: I was saying immediately to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks, I will fall back upon the final choice and say that this is a gross terminological inexactitude.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: My Ruling is that there are well-authenticated precedents for the alternative expressions that the Minister has used.

Mr. Hogg: May I take it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the original words are unreservedly withdrawn by the Minister? Otherwise, will you please rule upon them?

Mr. Charles Pannell: Further to the point of order. Surely, in the normal use of the English language, one can say that statements are lies without accusing anyone of being a liar.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We are not discussing the normal use of the English language. We are talking about Parliamentary expressions.

Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because his intervention has emphasised my point that the Leader of the Opposition tried to give the impression that the Labour Government, out of bias against the owner occupier, deliberately cut off local authority mortgages, whereas during the year in question they reached a record total. I do not know what the right hon. and learned Gentleman would call that, but I know what people outside will think about it.

Mr. Rippon: Will the Minister confirm whether he has given my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition notice of his vicious attack upon him? [HON. MEMBERS:"Where is her?"] Secondly, will the Minister confirm the accuracy of the figures which I have given, and will he reply to the speech which I have just made?

Mr. Crossman: I am puzzled at this. A Motion of censure is being moved by the Opposition. If the Leader of the Opposition, who spoke last Sunday entirely on housing, is not here to stand up for what he said—[Interruption.]

Mr. Hogg: Further to the point of order. Am I not entitled, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to ask the Minister whether he unreservedly withdraws his original use of the words "deliberate fabrication"? If he does not withdraw, will you kindly rule upon it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understood that the Minister had withdrawn that expression and had used an alternative expression for which there is good Parliamentary precedent.

Mr. Rippon: The Minister knows perpectly well where my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is this afternoon.

Mr. Crossman: rose—

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Would it be convenient for you at this stage, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to make clear, as is, I think, the fact, that the reason why the term "lie" is out of order in this House and why "terminological inexactitude" is in order is that the former conveys a deliberate intent to deceive, whereas the latter expression does not? Will the Minister, therefore, in turn, frankly avow to the House his withdrawal of any suggestion of deliberate misrepresentation by my right hon. Friend?

Mr. Crossman: I am prepared to stand by the use of the words "terminological inexactitude" in the same way as Sir Winston Churchill at the time he used them. If he thought that there was no attribution of motive in them, then I think so, too.
Let us return to the local authority mortgages and the accusation made by hon. Members opposite that we deliberately cut them off because we hate the owner occupier, we are now getting the facts. The fact is that local authority mortgages went up in that year, but they were restricted, and they were restricted because the local authorities were competing for the business of the building societies, which were then in difficulty. Therefore, a three-year average formula was reached, and during the winter we worked out a new formula under which we were able to let the local authorities resume full business again in April under a series of classifications of those to whom they should lend money.
If the Opposition criticise us for that, will they tell us what their policy would be about local authority mortgages? Would they say, for example, that we ought not to have limited in any way the Greater London Council, which loaned £80 million in 1965? One-third of the Greater London Council's capital investment went out in mortgages. Was it wrong of us to limit this? Was it wrong of us to suggest that instead of competition between the building societies and the local authorities, we might have the local authorities usefully complementing the building societies, as we succeeded in doing?
Of course, we shall not get an answer to this, but I might ask the hon. Member for Londonderry whether, in winding up the debate for the Opposition, he will tell us what his party thinks about this issue. Since he must now admit that the statement that we cut off the mortgages to spite owner-occupiers is untrue, because we did not do it, perhaps the hon. Member will tell us his view of what local authority lending should be.

Mr. Graham Page: The Minister has just admitted that during the winter he did cut off the mortgages and that he has now allowed them to be resumed.

Mr. Crossman: On the contrary, what I said was that they were restricted. They were not cut off.

Mr. Page: What is the difference?

Mr. Crossman: The difference is that the amount of the mortgages last year was greater than under the Tories. They were restricted from being even greater. Hon. Members opposite who cannot see the difference in language between restricting an ever-growing demand and cutting it off to spite the owner-occupier are guilty of self-deception.

Mr. Rippon: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept simply that they were cut down?

Mr. Crossman: Certainly. It could have been said that they were restricted because they had grown to colossal dimensions; but that is not what was said. What was said at Perth was that to spite the owner-occupier, we cut off the mortgages. As lawyers should know,


there is a world of difference between the mewling of those two words.
I turn now to one general point about the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and their general attitude. Nearly all their criticism of our housing policy concentrates on the private sector. They hardly mention the public sector. We came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that the first job we had to do was to make up our minds about the proper balance to achieve with the limited resources between houses to let and houses for sale. We decided that of the total programme, 250,000 must be allocated as houses for rent. That was a very big increase

Mr. Rippon: When are they to be allocated?

Mr. Crossman: In the National Plan.

Mr. Rippon: 1970?

Mr. Crossman: Yes. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has put himself a target of 500,000, according to his Election manifesto. Of his 500,000, how many does he think should be for rent and how many for sale? Perhaps the hon. Member for Londonderry will reply to this in winding up the debate. What proportion would the Opposition have between the two?

Mr. Rippon: What the Minister must let the local authorities do is to build as fast as they need for what they require, and the private builder should be allowed to go ahead also. The right hon. Gentleman should not assume that, by 1970, 250,000 people a year will not be able to make better provision for themselves.

Mr. Crossman: This is interesting. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that all we have to do is to let the local authorities build all the houses they can—

Mr. Rippon: They need.

Mr. Crossman: —which they need—and build what they can, as fast as they can. I tell him bluntly that we at least are a Government who cannot afford to let the local authorities build all the houses they can—

Mr. Rippon: And need.

Mr. Crossman: —and need—because the need is gigantic. The need is large in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow. Because we inherited one million slums, the need is so great that if local authorities were allowed to do that, if, first, they were given the possibility of doing it and then did it, they could absorb all the housing resources. All the skilled labour could be sucked out of the industry on the one job of houses for rent. This is a job which is all the more important because it was held down under our predecessors, because they let the pool of rented houses drop by one million during their ten years. There were one million fewer rented houses at the end. That pool has to be filled again. The trouble is that if we were to fill it as fast as we can, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested, no houses at all would be built for owner occupation.
Therefore, one has to strike a balance. One has to say that we will allocate a certain figure to the local authorities and broadly let them fulfil it, because that is the area which we can plan and control. That was why we decided that we would let them go up to the total Of course, they can go higher—that is quite right; of course, they could do much more—but our feeling was that from our national resources we could afford 250,000 a year by 1969. That is the aim. I suggest that the Opposition might give me a more efficient answer than the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave—that we should let everybody do just what they like and that then there will be no trouble. it is very characteristic of him, and it is a totally unrealistic appraisal of the problem.
During the election the Opposition concealed from the electorate systematically their attitude to public sector building. What rate of subsidy would they give to the public sector—their old subsidy of £24 a house or our new subsidy? We do not get a clear answer to that question. In these last 18 months we have built up the machinery necessary to get the public sector moving along the lines which we require. Our first job has been to select the areas where public sector building shall be concentrated. One of the things which we inherited was the idea that it should


be spread over the country, in the way already described, namely, to let any local authority build what it can and then give the local authority so low a subsidy that it cannot afford to build. That was the solution of right hon. and hon. Members opposite.
We did it differently. We have created a generous subsidy, increasing it from £24 to £67 a house, which means that local authorities can now build without putting an intolerable burden on the ratepayer or the council-house tenant. It is now necessary to decide whom we should allow to build where and how much. We therefore said to ourselves that we must have the building concentrated where the need is greatest, that we must select the seven conurbations where, as Milner Holland proved in London, the ghastly situation arose after 10 years of Tory rule. The Tories love the Milner Holland Report. They think it is wonderful. They did not make a single suggestion how to operate it in order to remove the evils revealed by the desperate famine of cheaply-rented houses not only in London but in all our conurbations.
We have selected 130 local authorities, quite a minority, out of the 1,228 housing authorities in England. We have tried to bully them and pressure them to build because they are the authorities where the need is, where we have got to get the houses built, and to the rest of the authorities we must say, "We will give you what we can." We tried to get 60 per cent. of the public sector building into these 130 authorities where the slums are. If we are to abolish the slums in a reasonable time we have to concentrate and we have to be prepared for unpopularity. We have to be prepared to say to our friends, "We have got to hold you back because others have the greatest need." That is why we say that the greatest concentration should take place in Liverpool, London, Manchester and the seven conurbations.
Having got the rolling three-year programmes which we shall revise every year, watching every local authority and spurring them on to greater endeavour, we have got to find techniques which will enable us to do it without overburdening the building industry. Here I should like to pay my full tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham for

founding the N.B.A. It was a good thing to do. I think that a certain price was paid for what might be called his Departmental imperialism and the rivalry which was set up between his Ministry and the Ministry of Housing. Nevertheless the N.B.A. was a good organisation and I am glad to be able to pay a tribute to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for founding it.
However, I must say that what we inherited with the N.B.A. were over 350 systems jostling together, and no one had had the courage or the drive to sort them out and see to it that we got them down to a reasonable number to be used. That is now being done. All I would say is that following the Prime Minister's announcement on 17th May we are now arranging for the transfer of responsibility from the Ministry of Public Building and Works to myself and the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales. It is true that the N.B.A. will now concentrate on housing matters as it has been doing for the last 18 months. This does not mean public sector housing only. It will cover the whole field of housing and the development and application of system building. It will continue to work closely with the house-building industry on the same basis of confidence as hitherto. One other point to make is how successful industrialised building now is. The right hon. and learned Gentleman launched the idea of N.B.A. There was no actual building being done when the right hon. and learned Gentleman left office—

Mr. Rippon: rose—

Mr. Crossman: I have given way a lot. Let me give the right hon. and learned Gentleman the figures. In 1964 just under 11 per cent. of the public sector dwellings completed in England and Wales were being built by industrialised methods. In 1965 the figure was 16½ per cent. In 1966 the figure is 22 per cent. and we shall get 40,000. This is really a beginning and I think that by 1969 we shall get the necessary 40 per cent. built.
As I said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman started the idea of the N.B.A. but he did not undertake the difficult job of training the local authorities on one side, and undertaking the harsh work of sorting out the system builders on the other.

Mr. Rippon: Of course, I started to do so.

Mr. Crossman: In a very modest way. That has now been undertaken, and that means that we can now claim that as a result of the work which the right hon. and learned Gentleman started there has been a breakthrough, and industrialised building has come to stay and will more and mope form the mainstay of the local government system.

Mr. Frank Tomney: Can my right hon. Friend say, in the interests of efficiency, what number he has decided upon and whether any one firm has got more than one system?

Mr. Crossman: The system that we have arranged with the N.B.A. is that the Agency certificates the systems and we advise local authorities which systems are used. The systems are regionally distributed. I think I am right in saying that at present some 40 have been certified for local authorities to consider using.
In addition to the N.B.A., the industrialised building programme has been greatly helped by the presence in the Ministry of somebody from the firm in which the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) is interested, Mr. Peter Lederer. It has been invaluable to have in the Ministry an outstanding engineer of such practical experience in system building. I am glad to say that now he is going back to Costains he will be replaced by Mr. Wood of Concrete Limited, a very outstanding constructional engineer who probably has as much experience of high rise building as anybody in the country.

Mr. T. W. Urwin: Before my right hon. Friend leaves teat point of the National Building Agency, will he tell us a little more about the future rôle of the Agency after it has beer, absorbed by his Department?

Mr. Crossman: It will not be absorbed by my Department, for the reasons that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given. It will have an independent existence and will work with my Department. It will be concerned with system building, with advising local authorities and helping

in the job of training local authorities to make good use of the systems.
I want to say a word about finance, and in particular about the issue of council house rents on which I know a number of hon. Members opposite are very concerned and on which we were constantly attacked during the election. We were asked time after time why, if we gave such lavish subsidies, we could not force councils to control their rents and introduce rent rebate schemes. This was put to us by the Leader of the Opposition in speech after speech, and I defended it. I think rent rebate schemes are good. I think that now we have rate rebate schemes, rent rebate schemes will come much more quickly. But I am not prepared to exercise dictatorship from Whitehall to remove from the local authorities their established rôle of fixing rents and allocating tenancies.
I was delighted the other day to find that I had a real supporter in this attitude, in somebody who expressed it even more persuasively than I can and said it with a mellow forensic skill which is remote from my tongue. I have found the pamphlet which refers to the
demands that the Minister of Housing and Local Government should be empowered to control local authority rent policies and require them to operate some sort of rent rebate system.
It says that we must beware of trying to have things both ways. It goes on to say:
If we want really responsible local government, attracting the best available local talent, the corollary is as much true independence as possible. The alternative of increased governmental control is to assimilate their position to that of mere agencies of central government, which is both more logical and more efficient to leave the civil servants.
Those are the words of the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham who opened this debate for the Opposition. They came three days after his leader had repeated his attack on those of us who say that councils should be permitted to be free. It would be interesting to know who speaks for the Opposition, the Leader of the Opposition or their spokesman on housing. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman who is to wind up will tell us how this slight discrepancy between those two interesting personalities is reconciled.
Having said that, I come now, because I think that the House will be interested in them, to the April figures. We can then have the full picture of the first quarter clear.

Mr. David Winnick: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the subject of council house rents, could he say what safeguard there is for council tenants who are faced with substantial increases, as in Croydon, of over £1 a week? Does he see any form of safeguard for them such as tenants in the private sector now have?

Mr. Crossman: I do not see the same form of safeguard as there is in the private sector. We introduced rent control for the tenant of private property to protect him from those who would exploit him for reasons of profit. As no council can make a profit on council housing, that kind of protection is not required for the council tenant, who, of course, has recourse to the ballot box in the normal way in self-defence. This is the reason why, in our system of local self-government, we have always said that the proper defence for the council tenant lies in the council chamber and the ballot box, not in Whitehall.
A word now about the figures—

Mr. Lubbock: rose—

Mr. Crossman: I want to get on now and give the actual figures, which I am sure the House would like to have. In April, public authorities started 15,300 houses, making 54,000 for the first four months of the year, compared with 58,000 last year; but, with 244,000 houses under construction, they have still a great deal in the pipeline, and construction times have been lengthening slightly. If this reduction in starts leads to a speeding-up in construction, the public sector will be all the healthier for it.
Public sector completions in April were 13,200, making 53,000 for the first four months, almost exactly the same as in the corresponding months of last year. Last year's weather was good. This year's weather was bad. I think that they did well during the four months to maintain the construction standard of last year.
Private builders started 20,900 houses in April a considerable improvement on

March, which also was an improvement on February. That made 66,000 starts for the first four months of the year, compared with 78,900 last year. Private completions were 18,200 in April, making 63,900 in the first four months compared with 69,000 last year. So the private sector is substantially down in its completions, and the public sector remains almost constant in its completions.

Mr. Rippon: rose—

Mr. Crossman: I must get on.

Mr. Rippon: It is on these April figures.

Mr. Crossman: I must—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the Minister does not give way, the right hon. and learned Gentleman must resume his seat.

Mr. Crossman: It is always difficult for a Minister on these occasions. I have given way a great deal, and I ought to complete what I have to say and leave the debate for the House. I have something more to say about these figures, and hon. Members can comment on them afterwards.

Mr. Rippon: We ought to have had them in advance, before the debate.

Mr. Crossman: The figures are there, and I have just given them to the House. In looking at the private sector, there is this problem. We talk about—

Mr. Rippon: It is too bad.

Mr. Crossman: What is too bad?

Mr. Rippon: I was saying that it is really too bad for the Minister to make a habit of giving selected extracts from figures. Some may happen to be damaging to his case while others may be favourable. I want an assurance that, whenever we are to have these detailed housing statistics, they will be given to the House immediately, in advance of debate. Otherwise, we shall only have to go over them all again next month.

Mr. Crossman: The official figures will be out in a week, but I thought that the House would like to have them this afternoon for the debate. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want them, he need not have them. I have given them to the House, and I did so because I


thought that I would be blamed severely if I did not.
In the private sector, we do not programme, we do not control and we do not regulate. We have to rely on persuasion. The problem there is totally different from the problem in the public sector where we have loan sanction, where we have approvals, and where we can exactly control the output. In the private sector, partly because he insists on it—I have emphasised this to the builder—there is no interference, no regulation and no control. This is why I invited representatives of the building societies and the builders, along with the local authorities, to sit down with me and my officials and work out ways of achieving a steady and continuous advance to the half million. These working parties have been producing useful results, and the builders as well as the building societies are beginning to welcome the fact that, for the first time, they have been invited to co-operate with the Government in their housing plans. But I do not deny that the achievement of the private sector in the last 12 months has been disappointing, with starts hovering around the level which would provide an annual figure of 210,000. Of course, it is not so much less than the best achieved by our predecessors, but it is a long way below the 250,000 houses a year which we are determined to see the private sector provide for the owner-occupier by 1969.

Mr. Graham Page: rose—

Mr. Crossman: I must get on with my speech.

Mr. Graham Page: It is on these figures—

Mr. Crossman: This disappointing level was the result of the mortgage famine last spring. However, I do not want to exaggerate its size. It has been improving from February to March, from March to April and from April to May, from the 12,000 started in February to the 21,000 started in April. If this improvement is sustained, the private sector could easily stage a come-back sufficient to embarrass any prophet of doom.
There are 203,000 houses in the pipeline in the private sector, but one of the puzzles here is that, during the last 12 months, the period for completing a house

in the private sector, which used to be two months longer than the period in the public sector—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, never."]—has now drawn level. [Interruption.] I am just giving the figures. The period is now longer—

Mr. Graham Page: rose

Mr. Crossman: The period is now 12 months, but it used to be ten months. In the course of the last year, it has prolonged itself. I am giving the detailed figures. This spring, it is taking over 12 months to complete a house for sale, compared with just over ten months a year ago and just over nine and a half months in March, 1964. It used to take builders two months less to build a house for sale. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Now, it takes the same time to build a house in both sectors. [HON. MEMBERS: "The right hon. Gentleman said it took longer."] No, I said that they took less time before, but they have prolonged the period now so that they both take the same time. I hope that the House has it clear. It is now taking the private sector two months longer.

Mr. Graham Page: The right hon. Gentleman said that it is now taking the private sector longer to build houses than before.

Mr. Crossman: Yes.

Mr. Page: Longer than it takes the public sector.

Mr. Crossman: No.

Mr. Page: It cannot be true. It does not take the private sector longer.

Mr. Crossman: rose—

Mr. Page: May I just complete this?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have the Minister and the hon. Member for Crosby on their feet at the same time.

Mr. Page: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman gave way to me. I was on my feet, and I had not finished my question to him. I wished to point out that the figures which he has given for building show that there are 15,000 fewer houses being built this year than there were last year, which means that he will not achieve as many houses built this year as last year.

Mr. Crossman: I was discussing the point that the figures now show that there has been a prolongation of building time in the private sector. The time for completion in the private sector is now two months longer than it was a year ago. What would make more difference than anything else to the results would be if the builders set to work with a will and completed even one-third of the 200,000 houses in the pipeline. The question we have to ask ourselves is why they will not.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman himself asked this question and he gave his explanation of the delay. One thing we are pretty clear about is that the big contractors are not affected. They are working in boom conditions, building all they can for the private and public sectors, and they do not seem to be affected by the difficulties of which we are talking. The difficulties are concentrated among the small builders, but one has to realise that 60 per cent. of houses are built by firms with fewer than 50 houses to build in a year and 30 per cent. are built by firms with fewer than ten to build a year. What we have to discover is how to stimulate the small builder to build as fast as he used to be building a year ago and as the big builder is still building. I think that we can knock out four things which are often said to be causing the delay.
The first is high mortgage rates. It is clear that, with a 7¼ per cent. rate such as we have now, a mortgage still remains one of the most profitable investments, and, with Income Tax concession, it still costs less than 5 per cent. High mortgage rates are infuriating to the buyer, but the number of houses on which advances are being made by the building societies in the first quarter of this year is 34,000 new houses, and in the record four months of last year it was 31,000. So the amount of money being advanced and the number of houses on which it is being advanced is greater this year than last year. That dispenses with the idea that it is shortage of money or the high rate of interest which has anything to do with the subject.
Nevertheless, the Chancellor and I were worried by the determination of the B.S.A. to raise the rate from 6¾ to 7¼ per cent. Now that it has taken the decision, we have decided to refer it to the Prices and Incomes Board. How to combine

a continuous growth in building society business—

Mr. Oscar Murton: rose—

Mr. Crossman: —this is essential to the private sector housing programme—with complete security for the lender and with efficiency in management is a very difficult question. We were not convinced that the traditional building society attitude to this issue was wholly in tune with modern conditions. Though the building societies disagreed with us, I think I can say that the building society representatives feel that something of value might come out of an examination by the Prices and Incomes Board. Replying to the right hon. Gentleman about the G.L.C., the council lends on fixed interest, and these things do not apply to it.
Secondly, can it be a mortgage famine which is the difficulty? Clearly not. In that sense there has been no mortgage famine this year. It may be difficult some times to get a mortgage, but the number of mortgages being given is greater this year than it was in the first four months of last year. Nor can anyone say that it is a shortage of bricks and mortar or even of skilled labour. [Interruption.] I note that the Opposition agrees with me about this. It is not even shortage of skilled labour because skilled labour is slightly easier now than a year ago.
There have been two things which have mostly been holding up building completions. The first is the concern of the builders about bridging finance. If they are concerned about this, as it appears, I hope that they will take advantage of our working parties and start discussing their practical problems with us, and if they feel that it is only the big builders who can come to see us, we shall be prepared to see them in the country and discuss the practical problems with them, because I believe that some of these things can be resolved in that way.
The main reason that they have given—this is something that I must look at—is the land difficulty. According to them, they see this difficulty arising because of the coming of the Land Commission. This seems to me to be a complete and total misunderstanding of the


situation. The land famine, the shortage of building land, has little to do with the Land Commission. It is something which we inherited when we came to office. It is amazing that people should have such short memories as not to remember the difficulties—the soaring land prices, the speculative boom and the appalling shortage of land.
Let us look at the problem and see how it happened. It was the wanton demolition of the 1947 Acts planning machinery which caused the trouble. I am sorry to say that something else caused it, and that was the green belt policy adumbrated in 1953–54 by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) when he was Minister of Housing. I say that I am sorry to say this because certainly I share the right hon. Gentleman's desire to protect the countryside and limit urban sprawl or seepage or slurb and to keep the country open between towns. But, unfortunately, the green belt policy that he promulgated had a fatal defect. It was a negative preservationist policy without any policy for development accompanying it.
If one has the first without the second, what one gets is not merely a wholly desirable preservation of the green belt but a wholly undesirable shortage of building land over the precise area where the houses are needed. The whole situation was made far worse by the complete failure in the 1950s to realise early enough that the population forecasts on which post-war development was based were hopelessly inadequate. When the situation dawned on the Tory Government of the day they did very little. The right hon. Gentleman said last week that in his view the whole of the land famine could be solved by the device of electing a Tory Government to do nothing again as they did in the previous ten years.
We have had to face the situation and get land. Since we are accused of not getting land, I want to tell the House how we got it. There is no shortage of land suitable for building; on the contrary there is plenty. There is no land shortage in that sense. The problem is how to get the right land allocated and brought forward for development at the right place and at the right time. The problem is how to break down the artificial shortages impeding both public and private building.
I had to take a very unpopular decision. I had to take a slice out of the green belt near Birmingham and give Chelmsley Wood to Birmingham because there was no other way of launching Birmingham's building programme. During thirteen years of Conservative rule Birmingham was unable to build. It is now building 7,000 houses a year because we got it the land required. It was land adjacent to the city, on its perimeter. I told Birmingham at the time "I am getting you this for the short-term, and for the medium and long term we must make preparations for releasing land which avoid taking the green belt, which jump over the green belt to the other side."
I can point in each region to new allocations of land for public or private building which have been made on the authority of my Ministry in the last eighteen months either by amending development plans or by planning permission granted on appeal or "call-in". For example, in the Northern Region there is 500 acres at Sunderland; in the North-West there is 450 acres at Whiston mainly for Liverpool; in Yorkshire and Humberside there is 285 acres at Sheffield. But I will not go through the whole list. In every area one of the jobs of the Ministry has been to get land released and developed. We have some achievements there.
Secondly, we have used the new town machinery far more fully than our predecessors did. We are now engaged in doubling, by a novel use of new town machinery, Northampton, Peterborough and Ipswich. This machinery enables us to designate land and obtain it for development, and we have done this in Swindon, Aycliffe new town and Wins-ford, which enables Liverpool to increase its target from 30,000 to 60,000. There is also to be a second generation of new towns. So we are acquiring and designating land. If our predecessors in their ten years had done a quarter of the designations and acquisitions of land which we have done in our first eighteen months, we should not have the terrible land famine which we have today.

Mr. Rippon: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how he is able to do all this without the Land Commission? Why does he need the Land Commission if he has all this land?

Mr. Crossman: I was just coming to that. I was about to say to the right hon. Gentleman that all that we are doing is terribly piecemeal and so far insufficient to meet the needs of Birmingham, London, Sheffield or any other great city. Well do I know it. The right hon. Gentleman is not used to the fact that if one increases council building to the scale that we have been doing, one increases the requirement for land and needs more land. This is why we simply have, in addition to all the other machinery which we have got—which is inadequate—to revise planning law. This is something that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. We must do it and we are on the way to doing it. Also, we have to have the Land Commission. What is the value of the Land Commission? It is not primarily in the first case to public enterprise, not to the council, not to the new towns. All these have their facilities, with my help, for acquiring land. The people who are left out of it are the small builders. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman says that they are not. But their very complaint is that they are.

Mr. Rippon: rose—

Mr. Crossman: Let me finish this. The people left out, who say that they cannot get the land, are the small builders. They are the people who need the land. If I may say so, very often it is the big builder who is buying it up. What they need, therefore, is an agency which will go out and get the land for them, and, as I made perfectly clear—we have written in an Amendment to Clause 1 of the Measure to make it inescapably clear—we have power to direct the Land Commission as to where it should operate and in relation to which planning authority it should operate. I can tell the House that in the first stage when finances are limited we shall leave the local authorities and the new towns to rely on their own resources. We had to concentrate the activity of the Land Commission predominantly in releasing land for the small builder, who has a legitimate complaint.

Mr. Rippon: Why does not the right hon. Gentleman allow local authorities to use their existing powers to buy land and release it to small builders? Why not make the necessary amendment, which the right hon. Gentleman can do admini-

stratively, in respect of the green belt, and also speed up the process of planning decisions?

Mr. Crossman: We have speeded them up as much as possible within existing legislation. The other stage will require a change in legislation, in removing the right of appeal in minor cases.
The right hon. Gentleman asked why we do not allow local authorities to provide land for the private builder. The private builder would not feel confident that a local authority would provide him with land. A local authority is very much in the business of house building. It wants its own land. Although I can give instructions in the case of New Towns—as I am doing—in all cases to allocate 50 per cent. of land to owner-occupation, it is much more effective to work from the centre, because local authorities cannot get into virgin territory and buy the land early. They cannot go in and capture it before development has forced up prices.
There is everything to be said for a Land Commission. All that is needed is for hon. Members opposite to help to persuade the small builder that if he knuckles down and builds his houses on the land that he has now, other land will be available to him afterwards.

Mr. Reginald Eyre: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has contradicted the words of his hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources who, in the recent debate, said that the allocation of land by the Land Commission would be, first to housing associations, secondly to local authorities, and only in special conditions to private developers?

Mr. Crossman: He certainly did not say that. I heard his speech. I am talking of the Land Commission in the early stage, which is what the builders are worrying about. This is one of the most essential arguments in our reply to this Motion of Censure. The right hon. Gentleman summed up his argument by saying that we had shown a total failure to respond to any of the challenges in housing which faced this country today.
We have responded to the need of the great conurbations to build houses to get rid of the slums by giving them, for


the first time, subsidies which enabled them to do so. We have used planning machinery—new town machinery—far more effectively to get the land. We have assisted in and started this job. We have got it ready. We know hat on the public sector side we have raised the level of building. The question is whether we can persuade the private builder to pluck up courage to do his job. I think that we shall do that as well.

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Walter Clegg: I want my first words in the House to be words of appreciation. Like all new Members, I have been treated with the utmost kindness by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and especially by the servants of the House—although I must confess that after a few days, taking quite impartially directions given from both right and left, I have twice finished up in the boiler house, from which I retreated feeling something like a latter-day Guy Fawkes. The kindness shown to all of us means a great deal.
My predecessor was for 16 years Member of Parliament for North Fylde. During that period Richard Stanley devoted a great deal of time and effort to looking after the affairs of his constituents. He was specially concerned with individual problems. I only hope that, in my turn, I can do the same. I have been studying the records, and I have found that my predecessor's family was represented in the House for 44 years—from 1922 until this year—without a break. My hope is to be as good a Member in my time as they were in theirs.
All hon. Members will agree that my constituency is the finest in the United Kingdom. Since the war it has seen remarkable progress in the building both of private and public housing. As the Minister has said, during that time we have seen town maps outstripped and target dates met long before they were due to be met. We have seen council house waiting lists greatly reduced. But some of the problems that we have been discussing still exist in my constituency. The shortage of land is one of the main ones.
This is not due to the hoarding of land by private owners the difficulty is that there is not enough planning permission

available for land to come on to the market. This will stop development on the Fylde Coast, and especially near the coast, unless the right hon. Gentleman gets planning permission moving more speedily and therefore gives the smaller builder a chance to build.
We have many fine council estates in North Fylde, and I want to say something about the council house tenant. He is a much discussed man—a man about whom much is written. We are in danger of creating a static society among council house tenants. This is because of the system of tenure which exists as between a housing authority and a council tenant. At the moment the tenant is pretty well on a "grace and favour" basis. The right hon. Gentleman said that the fact that a public authority was subject to local elections provided good protection for the tenant. I suggest that that is not enough. The time may come when we shall have to provide a charter for council house tenants—a charter including powers for local authorities to grant leases over such a period of years as will provide a feeling of security for the tenant, subject to strict control or limited control on the part of a tenant to assign his tenancy. This would give the tenant a feeling that his home really belonged to him, and that he had a much more personal stake in it.
The question also arises of the difficulty of council house tenants transferring from one house to another. This question should be examined. It is very difficult for such a tenant to obtain a transfer within the area of one local authority, but it is even more difficult for him to obtain a transfer from one part of the country to another. That is why I say that we are in danger of creating a static society. I wonder whether the Minister would consider setting up a body on the lines of a national exchange agency for council tenants so that tenants in various parts of the country could register their desire to move and arrange exchanges with other tenants. In that way we may be able to get more mobility into our council tenants society. These matters are important. It is dangerous for families to become rooted in one spot because they do not find it easy to move if they wish.
I want to conclude by saying something which, on the surface, seems banal.


The only answer to our problem is to build more houses. Hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that any doctrinal differences that stand between the achievement of our common objective of building more houses should go. There are doctrines on both sides of the House.
I make a plea for the encouragement of private landlords to build more houses with their own money. This has been a great success in other countries. It would take the strain off local authority and Government finance, and the Minister would still be able to control the buildings to ensure that no injustice was done to ingoing tenants.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: It may be dangerous for an hon. Member to make his maiden speech in a debate on a thoroughly controversial subject, but, like others before me, I take some courage from what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) said in the Daily Mail recently, that there was no longer need for maiden speakers to worry about whether they were controversial or not. I do not know whether right hon. and hon. Members opposite will find my remarks controversial or not. I shall not try consciously to avoid being controversial. However, I want to carry out one of the conventions of a maiden speech and mention my constituency, because both Birmingham and Perry Barr are very relevant to the debate.
Birmingham is now one enormous building site. Probably more construction per square yard is going on there than in any other city in the country. Any measures designed to see this construction and produce the finished product are particularly relevant to it.
Perry Barr is the sort of area in big cities in danger of being forgotten these days. Before 1920, it was entirely green fields. There was hardly a house in the constituency. By the middle of the 1950s, it was filled up. Most of the houses were built in the 1920s and the 1930s and a few in the 1940s and 1950s. When we talk about the rate of house building as of cardinal importance, we must also think carefully about the quality of the housing, because we can learn a great

deal from the mistakes made during the 1920s and 1930s.
Some of the older council houses were built very well, but serious mistakes were made and we are paying for them now. One of the mistakes was that the balance was all wrong. Hundreds of three-bedroom houses were put up for the families with young children who were moving in at the time. But it was forgotten that these parents would grow old and, therefore, no provision was made for providing enough small accommodation for them in their old age. Now we have the problem of these elderly people living in accommodation far too big for them, the only alternative being to move them far away from the area in which they have spent so much of their lives and in which they brought up their families. This is something that we must be careful to get right in future housing schemes.
In the estates put up in the 1920s and 1930s community facilities for leisure time were often conspicuously lacking. The estates looked marvellous on the drawing board—geometrically a wonderful sight to see from an aerial photograph. But they consisted simply of houses and a few schools and not nearly enough community facilities. That is another aspect about which we must be very careful. We have to ensure a balanced community in our housing development. We do not want to encourage people just to sit in front of their televisions all evening, every evening. We want to have facilities nearby where they can join in and form a real community.
These houses have been particularly hard hit because the cost of building new houses has been masked over the last five years by the fact that new rents have been constantly subsidised by council house tenants living in the older houses, and the latter feel this very strongly. In addition, we are reaching a point where many of the older houses built in the 1930s are presenting serious repair problems. I do not feel that many local authorities are putting nearly enough money into their repairs accounts to face this problem, which is growing more and more rapidly. I want to say two things about what we should concentrate on in ensuring the quality of these houses.
First—and I give right hon. Members opposite all credit for this—the Parker Morris Committee was brought together


and it laid down standards in which are enshrined the principle that ordinary working-class people are entitled to exactly the same proper facilities and decent amenities in their homes as people who can afford perhaps to buy rather more expensive houses. I am glad that my right hon. Friend is persuading more and more local authorities to accept these standards as an absolute necessity for all houses and flats which they erect.
In surveying the houses built over the last 14 years in our big cities, one is struck by the tremendous contrast between the houses being built nowadays under the Parker Morris standards and those dreadful, pokey little houses put up in 1952 and 1953 in a mad rush to get 300,000 houses at all costs simply to satisfy a hysterical vote by acclamation at a Conservative Party conference. Ceilings were lowered, halls disappeared, and square footage was made much smaller. We are left with houses like this for the next 50 or 60 years. I am sure that hon. Members opposite have been in them. I would not like to have to live in one for the next 40 years or so.
I want to congratulate the Government for the encouragement they are giving to industrialised building. I am certain that in this lies the key to getting the sort of production we need for the National Plan. No one who has been to the Industrialised Building Systems and Components Exhibition that is on now will fail to have caught some of the excitement about what industrialised building can do. Of course, it is not a panacea. I do not think that it will make a building any cheaper and there are faults in it. Britain has come to industrialised building very late compared with other countries.
There are still too many systems and we need to cut them down. At a time when we are going over to decimal currency we have wrongly adopted a module of four inches. It is tragic that the powers that be did not take a metric module, which would have fitted in with the rest of Europe. Be that as it may, the system is working.
It produces more houses, although it does not produce them much cheaper. It does, however, produce better quality workmanship with the same labour, possibly less, because things fit. They are made in factories and machined to very fine tolerances. Most important of

all, it gives an opportunity for the development of housing. It means that we do not have the situation which existed in the 1920s and 1930s, when the same house was built for years and years and never improved. It means that architects can work on the systems and produce small improvements all the time.
From that point of view it is something which must be encouraged even more than it is at present. That is why I am particularly pleased that in the new Selective Employment Tax we have a real encouragement to industrialised building, to the extent that a house built in a factory and not on site will be cheaper. The more industrialised building we can use the more we are going to keep down the cost of housing.
Finally, I am particularly glad to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the Minister of Housing and Local Government mentioned Birmingham. He spoke of the land which has been released for Birmingham, and as a Birmingham Member I am particularly grateful to this Government because they have allowed Birmingham, at last, to get on with the job of solving the housing problems, the solutions to which have lain stagnant for the last seven or eight years.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Oscar Murton: It falls to me to have the peculiar pleasure of following not one maiden speech, but two, one from each side of the House. I would like, first, to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) on his forceful speech and for the allusions which he made to his distinguished predecessor, and for the natural and proper pride which he takes in his well-known constituency. I should also like to congratulate him on giving fresh thought to a very difficult problem, namely, the mobility of council-house tenants, not only in one area but over the country. I am sure that everyone in this House looks forward to hearing from him again on this and other subjects in the near future.
Secondly, I would like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price). He put forward an equally imaginative approach to the question of building. He spoke of the great city of Birmingham and of Perry Barr which, not so


very long ago, rose from the green fields. He also made one or two allusions, having as one might say, thrown down the gauntlet about contentious subjects, to the volume of building which took place some years ago.
There is contention and contention, and I am quite certain that we accept what he has said in the spirit of keenness with which he made his remarks, in the hope and desire of making his mark in this subject. I would like to congratulate him and say again that we look forward to him making contributions on succeeding occasions in general debates in this House.
I would also have liked to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister, if he had been in his place. My congratulations would have been because he has shouldered a considerable additional burden of housing problems by expanding his not inconsiderable empire to include the National Building Agency and that ailing body, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. The Government have waited 13 months to announce the concentration of these powers under the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who becomes what one might call a super-Minister. But having done this, is it not strange that the final step, which would bring the axe down upon the collective necks of those in the Ministry of land and Natural Resources, should have been delayed? We do not know when this fatal blow will fall.
The country is puzzled by this, because there is, as we on this side of the House at any rate know, a continuing disparity between the Government's promises in the matter of housing and their dismal performance, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman did with the figures which he gave us this afternoon. I am sorry to say that we are not to receive these in full for another week. I must protest mildly about this, because these figures are vital to us all in a debate of this important nature. I regret that the Minister is not here to answer this. It is extremely hard to comprehend the meaning and import of these figures from what the Minister gave us at the Dispatch Box today.
There is another important point I would like to mention. I noted, when I referred to the guillotine falling upon the

Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, that it would be a good thing if the guillotine fell fast. This is because the right hon. Gentleman made a statement this afternoon which we believe completely contradicts a statement made by one of his colleagues speaking in another debate, on the Second Reading of the Land Commission Bill, on the subject of priorities for the acquisition of land, and whether that land would be given to small builders.
When this debate is wound up it would be a good thing if we were made aware of what the Government's intention is and which Ministry is speaking correctly on this matter. The country will not have failed to notice from the Press reports today that the Building Societies Association is going ahead with its intention to recommend what I am told is an all-time record of 7⅛ per cent. for mortgage loans. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister said 7¼ per cent. but I think that this was a slip of the tongue. The 7¼ per cent. refers to the G.L.C. rate, and 7⅛ per cent. is the correct figure which the Building Societies Association is recommending.
The Minister and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor have done their best to put building societies in a straitjacket. Very understandably the building societies have slipped neatly out of it before the cords were finally and irrevocably bound tightly round them. I do not blame them because, as I understand it from the Press, they attempted to obtain a tax concession to help them with the service which they render to the public. Having failed to obtain this concession, they have resisted constant pressure, so I am told in the Press, applied by the Chancellor to reduce further their reserve ratios. I believe that the ratios have been gradually and systematically reduced over the past year or two and that they have now said, "So far and no further".
This is a very serious situation, but the building societies are in no way to blame. The blame must lie solely with the Government, because it is their economic policy which has caused the trouble. The only people who are going to suffer are those families looking for homes of their own and who are frustrated because they cannot obtain mortgage facilities, either because the money is not available or,


where it is becoming available, because the rate is very high. I disagree with the Minister who said, I believe, that 7⅛ per cent. is high but not insuperable. It is an all-time high, and far too high.
The failure of the Government's housing policy relating to mortgages will not be solved by the 4¼ per cent. option scheme, which, we understand, is shortly to be introduced. A real stumbling block is the initial deposit. We all know that our constituents are worried about the initial deposit. Some people profess not to understand this. They say, "Surely anyone can save £100 nowadays for the deposit on a house". My answer to that, and of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, is, how can anybody, starting from scratch, save the money for a deposit when he probably has to pay £3 or £4 a week for the rent of a council house or private accommodation before he can even get off the ground and begin to save?
If the Minister really wants to do something to help people to get houses of their own as opposed to keeping them in public authority houses, the best thing that he can do is to persuade himself and his colleagues that the lending of the deposit from Government sources might well be the answer. But if the Government are unwilling to make a loan of the deposit, a practical alternative is that they should let the building societies give a loan of 100 per cent. but guarantee the top 5 per cent. through the medium of the Exchequer. I feel—and this is a view which I hold very strongly—that intending purchasers should also be allowed to include their legal fees in the mortgage. They are another stumbling block, as I have seen in my constituency. When I was a local authority councillor, we hoped to persuade people to come out of council houses and go into private accommodation being built for sale, but they could not find the legal fees involved.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting and important point. I am sure that he has a lot of support on both sides of the House for it. It would be interesting to know why his party, during its 13 years of office, failed to do anything of this kind which would have been greatly beneficial to the people.

Mr. Murton: We did give guarantees to building societies. The hon. Gentleman was probably rather busy during the General Election, but if he had read the Conservative Party's manifesto he would have seen that we promised something which I consider to be very much more concrete than that which the Government have promised. We shall see whether they ever fulfil it.
A scheme could be devised which would be an incentive to persuade higher income council tenants to move into owner-occupied accommodation, to set them up as home owners, and to allow the accommodation thus freed to be given to those not so fortunate in having such a high income. I have found from talking to tenants that some of them are astonished that the equivalent of the rent which they are paying for a council house would go very nearly the whole way towards a mortgage repayment on a small privately-owned house. That is another point which needs reinforcing. Encouragement towards this end could be given, and the facts should be made known.
I have spoken about mortgages and the methods which I think should be adopted to aid intending house purchases. What will certainly not aid them is the Chancellor's Selective Employment Tax. This has already been mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon). It is all very well to claim that the construction industry is now to be brought into the investment grants scheme, after second thoughts on the part of the Government, but, at best, this will help only the really large companies; and even they will be appreciably worse off than before.
My concern, however, is for the small builder. There has been discussion about the small builder today. He will be in a very difficult position. It is calculated that the Selective Employment Tax will have the effect of increasing the hourly rate by as much as 7½d. per man employed. This might well amount to 6 per cent. It will add at least 2 per cent. to the cost of homes. It has been suggested that the average increase might be £50 on the price of a three-bedroomed house. But I have seen as much as £100 quoted. The Government should take warning from this when they consider the Bill dealing with this tax. It


is a vicious tax, because it strikes in the wrong places.
The Minister must also face the fact that the constantly spiralling rate bill will not help the finances of intending house purchasers. His proposed measures to abate the annual increase, as he well knows, are totally 'inadequate because, although cumulative, they are not incisive enough in their opening stages. The Conservative Party's proposal for cutting the rate bill straight away by 10 per cent. was a much more realistic and positive measure. The Government should take heed of that and do something to improve their own proposals.
I wish to draw the attention of the Minister, who is still not here, to a most unfortunate by-product of his Rent Act. I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary who is concerned with that is not here either. The Rent Act is having an effect in housing young couples which was not foreseen. Many young couples begin their married life in very small flats or in older houses or in rooms let in those older houses, mostly unfurnished. I have found in my constituency that the owners of these houses containing small flats and unfurnished rooms are frightened by the provisions of the Act and the difficulties with which they would be faced if, for one reason or another, they wished to terminate the weekly or monthly tenancies which previously they operated.
Through worry of what might befall them, and to avoid this worry, they do not let those rooms any more and, in consequence, Poole, which normally has a very adequate range of accommodation, is, for the first time for many years, facing a shortage. Not only is there worry for the landlords, but there is even greater worry for those denied the accommodation.

Mr. Winnick: Would the hon. Gentleman like a return to the position which obtained under the Rent Act, 1957, when there was no security of tenure? Would he want the tenants of furnished accommodation to be evicted without a court order? Would he make the position clear?

Mr. Murton: It was not possible to evict from unfurnished accommodation without a court order.

Mr. Winnick: Furnished accommodation.

Mr. Murton: In the case of furnished accommodation, the normal procedure was to go to the county court if a proper agreement was in force. The situation of this narrow band of people about whom I am talking is very much worse than it was before.
I turn to another problem. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) will not object if I quote something which he said in November, 1964. He was speaking in an interview with a trade journal, Building. It was called something else then, but I believe it is called Building now. He was discussing brickmaking, and he said of these manufacturers:
I have offered them a guarantee. I have assured them that every brick they can produce over the next four years will be taken up.
He went on to say:
Nothing has a greater psychological effect on a man than seeing plenty of bricks on the site.
I do not want to make too much of this, because I think that enough has been made already in the form of bricks—I gather, to the tune of about 900 million. I am not so worried about the psychological effects of seeing bricks on the site as the psychological effect upon the workers and the manufacturers who have bricks in their yards, because I understand that now yards are full, and the stores of bricks are moving out into the green fields. I am sure that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will shortly be grumbling because so much valuable land is covered by bricks—not used, but in stacks.
It may be thought that I treat this subject with some levity, but, in reality, I treat it with great seriousness and worry because in my constituency we have a number of brickmaking firms which have put in special equipment at the admonition and exhortation of the Labour Government and now they are faced with a glut and they are in a position where they may have to pay off men. In my constituency, it is a serious problem. There are other constituencies with great


brickworks where the position is even more critical, and I should like to have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman, if the message is passed to him, or from whichever Minister is to wind up the debate, that something is being done about this, and that the Government really have the intention to use those 900 million tricks, because if we divide that number by the number which go to make a house it will be seen that there is practically a whole year's housing lying on the ground in fields.
We should like to see the Government live up to those promises they made. They accused us of paper promises. Let us see what they can do with their promises. Use the bricks, and use them quickly.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I will come in a minute or two to the points which the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Murton) made, but in so far as he has to deal with maiden speeches he will appreciate that from this side of the House I must first address my remarks to the hon. Member for Fylde, North (Mr. Clegg), who sits in front of him, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price) and offer them congratulations on their maiden speeches. I should think we enjoyed both of them very much.
I just want to tell them that there is in this place rather a myth about the difficulty of making a maiden speech. Those speeches will be about the easiest speeches they will ever make in this House. Actually, there is a flaw in this idea that a maiden speech is such an ordeal and is so difficult.
Both hon. Members will have learned by now that the House is so kind, so tolerant to maiden speeches. They must never be adversely reflected upon in subsequent debate, and there is a sort of conspiracy to make a new Member feel at home. It will never be repeated.
I was followed, when I had made my maiden speech, by Mr. Peter Thorneycroft. I am sorry, for personal reasons, that he is still not here. He said about making speeches that they get harder as one goes on, and they do.
This speech of mine is a sort of maiden, in so far as I have not spoken from the

back benches for five or six years, I think. I am, therefore, in a very curious sort of position. My hon. Friend who is to reply to the debate will be replying largely for any sins of commission or omission I may have committed at the Ministry.
I do not want to talk very much about tricks and mortar and building licences. Indeed, at this moment I feel like a man with a load of bricks off his mind. I do not want to refer to this particular subject, but the House will understand that in so far as I do bear some responsibility for what has happened it did seem to me that I should intervene at this time and then get to some other more cheerful subject, such as abortion law reform or something like that.
I should like to deal, first, with the question of bricks, because I really think that this gives us a key to the whole debate. I am glad the hon. Gentleman mentioned it, because I always like to follow the previous speaker. I wish to quote from an authority whom nobody here will impugn, Sir Arthur Worboys, at the annual meeting of the London Brick Company. He was speaking about conditions in 1964 and the 11 per cent. upsurge that year, and the shortage of bricks which was reflected in Parliamentary Questions from both sides of the House. Indeed, the very last debate before the election in 1964 was initiated, I think, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Public Building and Works, about the shortage of bricks. It is against those conditions that we came in and I dealt with the brickmakers. The hon. Member has been scrupulously fair in so far as he quoted the figure I had given for four years, whereas other people have sometimes quoted it in the context of six months.
I happen to believe in four-year plans, and that the weakness of our system here is that we have annual Budgets and annual Sessions of Parliament—the sorts of things fit for a pastoral society—the rotation of crops, the seed time and harvest. The sooner we get down to consider matters over four-year periods the better, and we could come nearer to a four-year plan if we could carry legislation over from one Session to another instead of having the rather unseemly legislative scramble at the end of the year.
However, to come back to Sir Arthur Worboys, he said:
When the Minister saw brickmakers in November, 1964, and set a target for an 8 per cent. increase in production in the following year, his reasons for doing so were justified by the heavy demand experienced for bricks in 1964 and the expectation of further growth in 1965 to meet a predicted steadily rising housing programme. Of course he had in mind the part to be played by industrialised building but, in his own words, 'In the context of a long term expansion of construction the increase of industrialised building will still be supplementary to traditional methods.' I am quite sure the Minister genuinely believed that a crash programme was required to get the extra bricks needed quickly and we should not forget that the 8 per cent. target was still well within the ultimate growth in brick production envisaged in the National Plan. What the Minister did not foresee and appreciate was the effect on building of the measures taken to correct the balance of payments and which later were enhanced by the Chancellor's severe cuts last July. In this respect, I suggest, brickmakers have a longer experience than the Minister of the cyclical conditions to which the industry has been accustomed in a national economy so precariously balanced between the requirement for growth and the need to protect sterling.
I hope that today we look at the question of the protection of the building industry in the context of the whole national economy. This industry, particularly, reflects the economy, and we cannot insulate the building industry from it. If, therefore, we consider that sterling was in peril in 1965, and that harsh measures were necessary—and hon. Members on the other side were calling for even harsher measures—frankly, something like the Chancellor's proposals had to be embarked upon. It is against that background that I would justify anything which we said at the time.

Mr. Arthur Jones: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was subsequent to those decisions that he was asking the brick manufacturing industry to expand its production?

Mr. Pannell: The hon. Member is incorrect. I am stating what Sir Arthur Worboys said. I met them in November, 1964. The Chancellor's cuts were in July of the next year. As a matter of fact, the general trend in the industry was seen in the January or February. The hon. Member has his dates wrong.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I apologise if I am wrong, but I know the right hon. Gentleman's advocacy in the early months of 1965 for an increased production of bricks. I remember him speaking in that respect on many occasions.

Mr. Pannell: In this House we do not bandy charges of that sort without quoting more accurately than a general blanket assumption. When one hon. Member assures another that it was not so, then he should be taken as having stated a fact. If an hon. Member opposite said to me, "I assure you", I should, of course, accept his assurance. We talk of each other as hon. Members, and we take that to be so. People should not shuffle out on half-statements. But it does not matter. Truth is indivisible.
I turn to a subject in which, probably to my embarrassment, I may carry the hon. Member with me. I want to mention the Selective Employment Tax. Of course, a Minister must take responsibility for anything he does when he is Minister, and I should certainly regard it as completely unpardonable if, when he ceased to be a Minister, a right hon. Gentleman referred to anything which had happened in his Ministry while he was a Minister. But he is. I think, entitled to reflect on the things which did not happen when he was a Minister.
I therefore come to the point that I left office on 4th April and that I had never heard of the Selective Employment Tax while I was a Minister. I cannot, therefore, be charged with any of its implications.

Mr. H. P. G. Channon: Not guilty.

Mr. Pannell: As the hon. Member said. I am not guilty.
Paragraph 18 of the Selective Employment Tax White Paper says:
The construction industry will pay the tax and there will be no refunds. This will induce economy in the use of labour. To the extent that the industry incorporates large quantities of manufactured goods (equivalent to about one-third of its total costs) there will be some offset to the effect of the tax.
That bald statement seems to me to be bereft of reasoning. It seems to me to be as about insensitive as it is daft.
I want to raise some rather more serious points. I will not go into the arguments


about co-operative societies and such subjects and I will try to speak about things of which I have had some experience. It seems to me that while we can bandy across the House such things as the Corporation Tax for a long time, we might have thought about the Selective Employment Tax a little more before it was launched and, to use an aircraft industry expression, we might have got the bugs out of it.
I notice that immediately the tax had been introduced there was a retreat in respect of agriculture from the proposal to recoup the money in the Price Review. The Ministry of Agriculture stands nearer to the industry of agriculture than perhaps any other Ministry stands to its respective industry. The next closest analogy is the building industry and the Ministry of Public Building and Works. The Ministry of Public Building and Works is nothing unless it is the leader of the industry, the protector of the industry and the Department without any doubt at all which has the greatest expertise in this field.
I wonder how much this Ministry was listened to—because very often the Treasury seem to do things which do not sound intelligent to technicians.

Mr. Lubbock: rose

Mr. Pannell: I will not give way. It is a difficult enough speech to make in all conscience.
I remember Sir Stafford Cripps introducing a Budget in about 1950. Clause 13 of the Finance Bill—I remember it very well—proposed to put a tax on electric vehicles. I worked on electrical vehicles before I came to the House, and I think that I could claim, in a technical sense, to know more about them than anybody else in the House. I remember going to the Chancellor or the Finance Secretary at the time, and frankly I could not get down to their level. It needed a whole deputation of engineers under David Kirkwood before the Clause was finally withdrawn from the Finance Bill. It was withdrawn merely because engineers had looked at it afterwards. Surely it would be far better sometimes for engineers and builders to look at things beforehand.
It is about time that we faced up to the nonsense of the Chancellor saying, "I cannot anticipate my Budget speech".

What that means, in effect, in this country is that all sorts of people are taken into the Chancellor's confidence. I am not attacking my right hon. Friend the Chancellor; this applies to any Chancellor of the Exchequer. He becomes incommunicado to his colleagues. Permanent Secretaries are taken into consultation under seal of secrecy. And then everybody awakens one morning and finds out what has happened. This is just nonsense. I could give examples from various Administrations. It seems to me that it would be far better if we looked at such things as these taxes which affect industry, and took them in a more leisurely way.
Looking back on the Dalton episode, can anybody be particularly proud of it? On both sides of the House, when a Minister makes a gaff we raise a hullabaloo out of all proportion to the seriousness of the mistake. I remember that I came into the House two minutes late at a time of hysterical election excitement—and what a fuss everybody made about that. We all slip up in that way, do we not, Mr. Speaker?
Everyone claimed that a great constitutional principle had been breached simply because, before three weeks of an election period, with the almost certaintly, as the bookmakers bore out, of a return of a Labour Government, I suggested that those who were dealing with building licences over £100,000 should "hold their horses" for a bit. I did this to stop them from getting into trouble, from engaging surveyors, from engaging architects, from doing all sorts of things. After all, how much preparation can one do in three weeks for a building costing £100,000?
The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr Rippon) has a vested interest in this matter, for he is a director of a building company. I wonder why he did not rush to my aid as quickly as he attacked my right hon. Friend the Minister—which he did in such a way that the Minister was scarcely able to say a single word.

Mr. Rippon: Is the right hon. Gentleman asking me to come to his aid? He does not need me to come to his aid. He is making a splendid speech. It is a pity that his right hon. Friend does not understand that this work takes a lot of preparation.

Mr. Pannell: I have a great regard for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as he knows, but as a director of a building company he seemed rather reluctant at that stage to support me in the knowledge which he and I have that in the three weeks no great harm could have been done at all. But there was a tremendous degree of excitement about that at the time.
I want to say a word or two about the building industry. The hon. Member who preceded me spoke about building societies and all the rest and we have tended to get away from the people who do the building—the building operatives. I cannot repeat this too often. The Press think it rather funny when I keep reminding hon. Members that houses are built by builders. I want to give a few of the facts of life about the building industry.
The National Plan is designed to achieve a 25 per cent. increase in national output between 1964 and 1970. This involves achieving a 4 per cent. annual growth in output long before 1970 and an annual average of 3·8 per cent. between 1964 and 1970. The output of the construction industries, on one opinion I have seen, is that it must increase by about 4½ per cent. a year, which is faster than the growth in national output. I have seen what I would call good figures on this matter stating that at whatever figure one fixes the growth rate of the national economy, whether 3½ per cent. or 4 per cent., to work it out the building and construction industries must, in the end, increase their growth rate by at least 1 per cent. higher.
Bearing this in mind, I do not believe that one can lump the construction industries in with the service industries. We must compare like with like When I worked for a living before coming to this place I was a mechanical engineer. I believe that the motor car industry is a socially irresponsible one. Yet it is the most "sacred cow" from the point of view of Chancellors, particularly in matters of exports. I also believe that the motor car industry has tended to distort the thinking of Chancellors in that many other manufacturing industries also provide goods for export. However, while we call for the construction industries to

achieve greater output, they are being held back.
The building industry is not growing. It is not an attractive industry. There were 14,000 fewer men employed in it a year ago compared with the previous year and not enough apprentices are entering the trade. In 1964, 29,416 boys entered the industry, which was a reduction from 31,473 boys who entered it in 1962. The famous N.E.D.C Report of 1964, which the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham thought was a very optimistic document—he was Minister at the time—referred in paragraph 40 to the acute shortage of skilled men and to the supply of apprentices being well below the then present rate of wastage.
There is another aspect of the building industry that must be taken into account; the amount of work it can carry. It is, in the main, an ageing industry. It is responsible for employing 10 per cent. of the country's male workers, 60 per cent. of whom are under 40, compared with 50 per cent. for all industries and services. Men tend to leave the industry by the time they are 40 and the reason is obvious. Often, perhaps usually, men must work in the wind and rain and before they reach that age they are looking for other jobs, perhaps jobs attached to industrial plant. They do not stick it once they are about 40.
Site conditions have fallen behind and, while I admit that the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham did a good job at the exhibition in the Horseferry Road, it must be accepted that, unlike so many other industries, the building trade still has the overhang of "hands" rather than people. Staff conditions are woefully lacking. It is remarkable to consider what are called white and blue-collar workers in the United States. The craftsman in America has terrific prestige, probably higher than that of clerical and sedentary workers. There is no great city in the United States which does not have an annual competition for the champion bricklayer. The champion is feted, not quite on the scale of a beauty queen because he is feted for a different reason. The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham may remember that the N.E.D.C. Report stated:
What is clear is that there is no certainty in present conditions that this industry will be able to meet the demands made upon it,


and the possibility cannot be ruled out that falling short may hold back expansion of the economy as a whole.
Although the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not agree with that then, he probably will agree now. It is, on balance, more likely to be true now, because I found when I took office—and I got my information from the same sources as the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he was Minister—that the industry could not bear the load that was demanded of it. I asked the industry if it could carry it and I was told that it could not. Although people do not like it when I advance this figure, I say with all sincerity that, in 1964, £100 million worth of work was available to the industry, but it could not do it.
Time and again it has been said that the industry should be stretched so that it is able to expand and do this work, but all the evidence shows that if an industry is to expand—is to achieve far greater growth rate—to talk about "economy of labour" in such an industry is a bit ridiculous. Therefore, if I were making a case against the Selective Employment Tax, I would make a case on behalf of this industry.
I do not want to be reported or taken as being against the Selective Employment Tax, although I agree with one hon. Gentleman opposite who, in a maiden speech, said that if we are to have an imponderable sort of tax, it should apply to industry generally. It would then be possible for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to alter the basis of that form of taxation. I agree that we want new forms of taxation, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor must be told that whatever else he might have done—if he had dealt with motor cars and all the other industries; the traditional ones which are so often dealt with in Budgets, like wine and whisky—the effects would have been predictable, but the Selective Employment Tax is completely unpredictable.
Having said that, I should make it clear that the tax is none the worse for that because we must live in the time of dynamism and change. Had the tax been imposed across the board I would have welcomed it. But the present situation is similar to what happened to the building industry on a previous occasion about investment allowances. They were

cut out and now they are given as a sop. I will not refer to that issue because I was mixed up in that one. Suffice to say that the arguments are the same, although the reasons seem to be different.
There is no doubt that in the conditions which existed 12 months ago, with overheating of the industry by 2 per cent. or 3 per cent., the Building Control Act was justified; that is, at that time. However, I always said that I did not want the building industry to be subject to blanket stop-go again. I realised that a much more sensitive instrument—something more permanent in our legislation—was necessary to be able to affect the industry one way or the other. If that Measure was justified, I doubt whether the Selective Employment Tax is justified as well.
What is the object of the exercise? Do we want to keep things in balance? Is the tax being introduced merely for the Chancellor's considerations? The answer is no. We are concerned, at the end of the day, with growth. We are concerned with providing a decent living for our people. This is, therefore, a socially desirable industry from every point of view, and it cannot be separated entirely from the conditions of the people who work in it.
I will not go over all the arguments again, because other hon. Members wish to speak. It must be remembered that practices are growing up in the building industry which the new tax will help to foster. [Interruption.] There are corrupt practices growing up in the industry. The National Builder stated in March, 1966—a journalist was discussing the labour gangs idea with a colleague:
Our income tax system is a mish-mash of historical bits and pieces. A wage earner is chained to PAYE, itself a 1939–45 war-time invention, which some people still regard as illegal because it deducts income before assessment…

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss on this Motion taxation in general. We can discuss the impact on the building industry.

Mr. Pannell: I am very conscious of that, Mr. Speaker, but when I have finished I am sure you will see that I have not abused your tolerance.
Growing up in this industry are what are known as labour gangs, people who contract out of sick-pay payments and out of


protection and everything so that we go back to a kind of industrial jungle. The habits of these people are thoroughly anti-social, but by this tax they will be rewarded rather than rebuked. The article goes on:
A self-employed person is in a much more advantageous position. He gets into Schedule D and thus can claim relief on a range of expenses which is denied the ordinary wage earner. My fellow member, for example,"—
this is a journalist talking of trade unionists—
earned £1,500 (or thereabouts) for the 1963–64 accountancy period, but he paid a mere £125 in income tax. This is quite legitimate; in fact, he pays an accountant £15 per year to handle his affairs.'
This is perfectly true, I can imagine it.
The article continues:
As he says to me, 'The tax business is really a legalised fiddle. I have been amazed at the number of reliefs that can be claimed if you are your own boss'. In my own tinpot way I have reckoned that he will be paying at least £250 a year in tax under PAYE.
This practice has been condemned by employees and employers alike. Merely as a result of bringing this into the Selective Employment Tax the industry considers that it is likely to foster the practice.
The position was put very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-West (Mrs. Renée Short) the other day, when she said to the Minister of Labour:
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the payroll tax proposals are encouraging the most undesirable practice? Is he aware that builders are being encouraged to sack their building workers and take them on as labour-only subcontractors? Is he also aware that if the practice extends any further into civil engineering, public safety may well be at risk because of the lack of supervision under this type of contract?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th May, 1966; Vol. 728, c. 892.]
This is a statement of fact. Some hon. Members may remember the case, reported in The Times, of a man who sacked all his staff in order to get out of paying redundancy payments. He put himself outside—and divorced his employees from—a beneficial Act of Parliament and he said, "The Selective Employment Tax is 'on' and I shall get that back again as well." No one will commend that type of employer. I happen to have old-fashioned ideas about collective bargaining. I do not always believe

in accepting the lowest tender. I believe in a fair price. That applies to trade union labour as well.
This industry is too often left out of account. The expert advice of the Ministry of Public Building and Works is not listened to often enough. It is not just a service industry. Far too often the men in it have to work in the wind and the rain. We ought to see how we can improve their lot and their conditions.
I say this with great respect to my right hon. Friend the Minister. The name of the Ministry is itself a misnomer. It has graduated from the First Commissioner of Works, the Estates of Land and Forests and many antediluvian titles. It now has a name which seems to be a hangover from historic buildings and glorified conveniences.

Mr. Rippon: rose—

Mr. Pannell: Please allow me to finish this flow of oratory.
The Ministry should be given a sort of title and status applicable to the workers in the industry and the industry itself. When I refer to "workers" I do not do so in an inverted snobbery sense; I mean the workers from the top to the bottom of the industry. I got into trouble for using the words "at your peril". Because I used a question-begging phrase I got into trouble. Words mean something and they sometimes have a poetry beyond their meaning.
The word "construction" would sound much better in this connection. Why not a Ministry of Construction? One of the great arguments about nomenclature arises when people talk about grammar schools as that term refers to a whole range of history, and "comprehensive" is an ugly word. "High school" sounds better. It would be better to call this Ministry the Ministry of Construction. Then people could take a pride in it and it would be commened by the industry as a whole.
The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham is rather upset about the National Building Agency. When he was in office he was inhibited and did not know what to do about the Agency. Being a Tory, he objected to the idea of collective bargaining and a collective view of things and rebelled. He did not know how to use it. I have always


been in favour of this work going over to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government because a building agency has to be organised and to have a catchment on other areas and to take over its problems. A good job has been done there.
This, in a way, has been a bit of a maiden effort, a valedictory speech. It is not a subject which I want to pursue or to speak on again.

6.46 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Scott: In the gentle game of cricket there is a tradition that a man making his debut frequently gets a rather loose ball as his first so as to get him off the mark. There is a corollary that he shall not hit that ball for four, but that he shall take a single. I hope that in "breaking my duck" I shall not take undue advantage of the courtesy, patience and tolerance which the House extends to me.
As the hon. Member for Paddington, South I follow Commander Robert Allan, who served in this House for 15 years following very distinguished and gallant service to his country in time of war, with service to the House as a private Member, P.P.S. to two Prime Ministers and as a junior Minister. He gave dedicated service to the constituency of Paddington, South which has earned him and his wife a warm and lasting place in the hearts of all those who live there. He served the constituency with distinction and dedication and he set standards for his successor which it is my proud ambition to emulate.
It is customary, I gather, also to mention—whether it is relevant to the matter under debate or not—one's constituency when making one's maiden speech. I shall spare the House a "Cook's tour"—or rather a "Jason's tour", as we call it in Paddington, where there are canal tours—but there is no subject which is closer to the hearts of Paddington people than the one which we are debating today.
There is much which is sad about the history of housing in Paddington. The multi-occupation of neglected properties provided the background for the operations of Rachman and others like him. But I point out to those who debated the 1965 Rent Act the other day that it was not the 1957 Act which provided the mainspring for those activities, but the neglect

of the housing stock in the inner ring due at least in part to rent control, and the pressure put on that stock by new arrivals in the area which was responsible for creating those conditions.
But it is mainly about the future that I want to talk this evening. Paddington is part of the inner ring, sometimes called the rotten ring or the twilight zone, of London. Many of its houses are in a poor condition. They are, by definition, also areas of great opportunity where new housing environments can be created.
The important thing is that, as we seek to creat these new environments, we define what it is that we are trying to do. At the moment, two main types of development are taking place in Paddington. There is private development, largely catering for luxury needs, and there is the building of large council estates. My fear is that, if this process continues, eventually a line will be drawn between the two types of development. There will be two communities with little in common and virtually an iron curtain dividing them. As these areas are redeveloped, we should seek to create a truly balanced community in them and we should encourage the middle band of housing between the two I have mentioned.
We know that today the average council household is better off than the average household in privately rented accommodation. It is, therefore, less than realistic to continue to subsidise in many areas council tenants while withholding any sort of subsidy from those living in privately rented accommodation. The Westminster City Council, which covers the Paddington area, is at present introducing a rent rebate scheme. This, as far as I can tell, is a realistic scheme and will benefit council housing in Paddington. There is, however, another side to the coin. I believe that it is possible and practicable to work out a scheme for subsidising private tenants when their needs are as great as those of their fellows in council accommodation.
I want, next, to mention the work of housing associations in catering for the needs of the middle band of housing, for they can do an immense amount to help those who are in the worst housing state in the big cities. They can make


a great impact on the type of multi-occupied property of which there is so much in Paddington by converting those houses into decent self-contained flats which could then be let at non-profit rents, with local authority control to prevent them from becoming again overcrowded. What housing associations need is encouragement and loans from local authorities and encouragement from the central Government to enable them to make their full contribution to meeting housing needs in large cities.
There is a need to encourage younger couples, in particular, to buy some of the smaller sound, older houses in areas like Paddington for owner-occupation. The big obstacle here is the reluctance of building societies in particular to grant sizeable mortgages on older properties. A scheme was in existence by which mortgages were provided on pre-1919 houses. I would hope that it would be possible to reintroduce such a scheme through building societies—perhaps through building societies and local authorities—because this would be a real help to young couples seeking to buy such houses. They would then improve them and bring them up to modern standards with their earnings.
In a further attempt to satisfy the needs of this middle band of housing, when comprehensive redevelopment schemes are considered and introduced they should not be exclusively public or local authority development, nor exclusively private development. It should be possible to involve both types of development within one scheme. If the clearing of slums and the redevelopment of twilight areas is left solely to local authorities, it will take a very long time and there will at the end be a very ill-balanced community within those large developments.
I would hope that it would be possible to give special encouragement to the large institutional investors to take part in large-scale redevelopment schemes hand in hand with local authorities, with regulated rents, with a fair return on their investment, so that they could make a positive contribution to the redevelopment of such areas.
Finally, I appeal to those responsible for implementing the housing policy, whether centrally or locally, to abandon any doctrinaire devotion to a particular

type of redevelopment and to think in terms of redevelopment by public and private authorities. I am convinced that only a massive combined effort can answer our needs.
I appeal to everybody to ensure that when we have the opportunity for large-scale comprehensive redevelopment we build for the future. Too often we can see being built today the slums of the next 25 and 30 years. It is well worth extra investment now if we are to create really exciting environments for those who will live in these areas in the many years that lie ahead.
I am convinced that we can wed the tradition of Wren and the other great builders with the concepts of Buchanan, that the sound Victorian houses that we still have in Paddington can be blended with the new comprehensive development that we hope to see, and that we can have inspiring surroundings and a really balanced community to make up tomorrow's London.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. John Forrester: I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity of addressing the House for the first time. I crave the indulgence of hon. Members on this occasion. I will endeavour to earn the gratitude of the House by being brief and please my hon. Friends by promising not to mention even once the Selective Employment Tax.
I have the honour to represent Stoke-on-Trent, North. People ask, "Where is Stoke-on-Trent?", or, more often than not, they say, "That is the Black Country, is it not?" With all due respect to my colleagues from the Black Country, that is the beginning of an argument. These people never follow the question, "Where is Stoke-on-Trent?" by asking, "What do they do in Stoke-on-Trent?" Hon. Members will know that the names of our manufacturers are known all over the world. The things that we produce in the potteries are synonymous with beauty and quality wherever those virtues are admired. Our coal industry has played a vital part in the country's economy in days gone by and is still doing so. It would be an odd house that did not possess at least one thing which was made in the City of Stoke-on-Trent.
We are proud that two of our firms were awarded the Queen's Award to Industry for their export achievements and that another firm was given an award for technological achievement. If all industries had an export record equal to that of the pottery industry, we should not have a balance of payments crisis.
I have the honour to follow as Member for my constituency Mrs. Harriet Slater. My distinguished predecessor was a most able and conscientious Member who attended to her constituency duties most diligently. One tends to think that perhaps she, in common with so many Members on both sides, was too good a Member and was too conscientious, because I am certain that the work that she put in here and in her constituency was responsible for the breakdown in her health which caused her to retire at what might be considered to be a comparatively early age.
I know from conversations with Members of the House and with officials that Mrs. Slater has left her mark here permanently. Indeed, her name will go down in the history books as the first woman Whip, an honour of which I know she was very proud. I sometimes wonder whether the previous Parliament would have lasted for 17 months if she had not wielded that whip so effectively on some of her colleagues. She performed many tasks ouside the normal calls of duty, which helped to keep this Parliament in being.
I am conscious of her devotion to duty, and of the high standard that she set for herself and expected from other people. If I could but approach her standard during my stay in this House, I should be more than satisfied.
It is the duty of any civilised society to provide for its people decent houses and education. It used to be bandied about that it was no good giving better homes to people who lived in slums, because they would not know how to look after them anyway. Time has shown that when one improves a man's environment his whole being usually begins to improve at the same time and to take on something of his new surroundings. This is good not only for the individual, but also for the nation.
I am pleased that the Government are conscious that we must plan our housing

programme ahead. This has not always been the case, but I hope that in the years to come we shall know exactly where we are going. The supply industries and the construction industries are entitled to know precisely what targets the Government have in mind, so that they can make their long-term plans accordingly.
We are concerned because in the pottery industry, which is a supplying industry for the builders, we have come across short-time working in the sanitary supply industry. With a record number of houses produced last year, we are a little mystified as to why this should be. Perhaps it is that the sanitary industry and the brickworks industry have not taken into account sufficiently the impact of new materials and that we have not realised what this will mean in terms of production.
I would hope that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government could perhaps forecast a little more accurately in future the extent to which it expects new materials to overtake the old ones. Can it do some research and tell us what traditional materials will be replaced, how long it will be before that happens, and by what percentage? This would prevent the personal hardships of short-time working as it is being experienced in Stoke-on-Trent at the moment and would also prevent the consequent loss of production and the wastage of skilled manpower.
I am quite certain that all right hon. and hon. Members, on both sides of the House, want to see more housing provided. We shall not be satisfied until all the slums have been cleared. But we want to be absolutely certain—and I think that the hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) was right in this—that we are not building today the slums of the future; that when we have knocked down houses that are 80, 90, or 100 years old we do not have to start to knock down those that are only 30 or 40 years old. Our aim should be to build quantity and quality. I would, perhaps, even suggest that if we had to choose between having a smaller number of houses of quality and a higher number of houses of inferior materials—perhaps even bad workmanship and bad design—we should go for quality and not quantity.
Houses are an expensive commodity. We do not want to find that when we have paid for them we have immediately to knock them all down. Councils spend public money on houses, people spend hard-earned savings on buying their own houses, and it is not right that they should, perhaps, be faced with a big bill in a very short time for repairs and renovations. There are still, unfortunately, far too many jerry-builders, and I hope that the Government will press ahead with their plans for voluntary acceptance of good standards of building. If they cannot get this by voluntary action, I hope that they will not hesitate to introduce legislation so that we can have good standards of building and thus protect the people who buy those buildings.
Two of the biggest headaches of local authorities and private citizens are the high interest rates and rising costs. Most right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House, despite what some people think, are keen on home-ownership, and it is because of this that we hope that the Government will soon be able to introduce their scheme for lowering the mortgage rates for private purchasers. The Government have introduced higher subsidies for local authorities, and this should assist the councils to build more houses more cheaply in the future, and, perhaps, at the present time, also.
I cannot help reflecting, however, that this probably helps the backward authorities. In Stoke-on-Trent we have built about 30,000 council houses, and we are now approaching the stage when we have to decide, not how many more thousand houses we need for our present population, but, rather, whether we need any more houses, or whether we must now concentrate on specialised building for old-age pensioners, and so on. The fact that we built so well, so early, rather seems to mean that we shall not qualify for the increased subsidies, or that only a very small proportion of the houses that we have for rent will now carry the bigger subsidies. It sounds as though those who have been kicking their heels, who failed to solve the problem earlier, are those who will profit most. It looks as though the first shall be last in this instance.
In an authority such as ours, in those circumstances, we shall not be able to use the extra subsidies to alter the pattern of our rents for council houses, as the Minister has suggested in one of his White Papers. I was glad to hear him say this afternoon that there is no truth in the rumour that he will introduce a national rent policy. But, when he is discussing rents, I hope that he will bear in mind the fact which I have just pointed out, and that he will also remember that many areas do not enjoy the very high wages that some of the more affluent areas enjoy.
My city is one of the former, and what would be a fair rent in London, Birmingham or Coventry would be a disaster in some of the industrial areas of the North. I hope that the Minister will bear this in mind. The necessity of having to increase rents continuously—periodically is, perhaps, a better word—is a problem which is in need of the most urgent solution and to which I hope that the Minister of Housing and Local Government will give most careful consideration.
It is the duty of the nation to house all people decently. We need an adequate supply of the right kind of accommodation for a particular stage in a person's life. A person may start with a three-bedroom house for a family, then have a two-bedroom house, and later a bungalow. This is something that we should be planning now. There is no proper balance between rented and owner-occupied accommodation. I hope that when we build we shall build wisely build well, and build to last.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: It is indeed a great pleasure to follow two such talented and interesting maiden speeches as those to which we have just been listening. The hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) has a very important housing problem in his constituency. As he said, his constituency is part of the inner ring of greater London which has been neglected in the past, and in which, as he put it, there is an enormous opportunity for imaginative redevelopment. I very much sympathise, in particular, with the point he made about co-ordination between the programmes of council house building and those of private developers, and that we should


not in constituencies like his create separate areas of an apartheid nature which divide council house residents from those who live in private occupation.
The hon. Gentleman made an extremely important point there, and I was also very pleased to hear him underline the importance of housing associations in urban redevelopment. We see that they have contributed by their increased output to the solution of the housing problems even during the last year. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have many interesting things to say in the months to come about the problems of urban development and the contribution that the housing associations can make to the solution of that problem.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) follows, as he said, Mrs. Slater, who was very much liked on all sides in the House. I was delighted to hear the hon. Member's nice tribute to her. We shall all miss her very much. We are, however, delighted to welcome the hon. Member as her successor.
I very much agree also with the hon. Member when he says that we shall not be satisfied with the performance of any Government until all the slums have been cleared in this land of ours and until we can be completely satisfied that in the new buildings that we are erecting to replace the slums, we do not in turn create new potential slums which might place a burden on the next generation. I entirely agree with the hon. Member that building standards should be of almost as great importance as the actual quantity of houses that we erect. I congratulate both hon. Members and I express the hope that we shall hear frequently from them on this important subject.
I turn now to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) and to the Conservative Motion to which he was speaking. The view of my hon. Friends and myself is that that Motion and the right hon. and learned Member's speech are altogether too extravagant. It is premature to make such a sweeping condemnation of the Government as is contained in the Motion and in the right hon. and learned Member's speech.
I noted some of the phrases used by the right hon. and learned Member, and

I would like to remind the House of what he said. He said that there had been a steady destruction and deterioration of the policies that were inherited from the Tories. I did not think very much of Tory housing policies. I did not think that there was very much that could be destroyed or deteriorated in those policies.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Robert Mellish): Well said.

Mr. Lubbock: The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham said that the Government's failure extended over the whole housing field. He implied that they had not done one good thing since they came into office. My hon. Friends and I cannot accept that. Thirdly, the right hon. and learned Member said that the housing and building policies of the Government are in ruins. He bases all this on one quarter's building figures which do not show much of an improvement on last year. I shall make some criticism of that myself, but it is altogether too extravagant of the right hon. and learned Member and his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to go up and down the country screeching that the Government's housing policy is in ruins based on such totally inadequate evidence.
I was interested to hear the right hon. and learned Member's speech and to note the point made by the Minister that the Opposition appear to be almost entirely preoccupied with owner-occupation. Owner-occupation is extremely important. We have a high percentage of it in my constituency. But I agree with the Minister that one sometimes wonders why right hon. Members on the Tory Front Bench forget completely about the rented sector and, when they do by chance remember to discuss it during our debates on housing, as the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Murton) did in his speech, they always speak from the point of view of the landlord. Every time that is a coconut, as every hon. Member who served on the Rent Bill Standing Committee will agree.
Because the shortage of accommodation is primarily in the rented sector, I prefer to deal with that sector first before I make a few remarks about owner-occupation. One of the most important features of the present situation—I do not say that


this is a new feature, but it is one to which, perhaps, we do not pay sufficient attention—is the steady drain that takes place from the pool of private rented accommodation.
Since the passing of the Rent Act, 1965, it may even be that this trend has accelerated—I made this point in the Standing Committee on the Rent Bill—because as landlords obtain vacant possession of properties, they are even more likely now to sell them for owner-occupation rather than relet them on a regulated rent than they were prior to the passing of that Act.
That is not a criticism of the Act, but it means that local authorities should be encouraged to acquire dwellings which are let at controlled rents from the landlords by negotiation between the local authority and the landlord. I am glad to see the Joint Parliamentary Secretary present, because I have written to him about this and I have tried to press him to encourage local authorities in this policy. If they were to do this, they would over a period of years expand the amount of rented accommodation which was available at their disposal and, as vacancies arose in the controlled property, they could let it at normal rents to people from their waiting list.
That is one respect in which local authorities could, perhaps, help themselves as well as helping the landlords of these controlled properties who, in many cases, have been unfairly treated over a period of years. I am not speaking of houses which have been bought as an investment, but, as the Joint Parliamentary Secretary knows, there are instances when the landlord has the property as practically his sole income and he has held it for a large number of years without receiving much return, certainly not enough to compensate him for the rise in the cost of living.
In many of the examples which I have met, when I have suggested to the landlord that he should offer his house to the local authority he has said that he would be delighted to do so but that for some reason, when it comes to the stage of negotiation, the local authority is not willing to purchase his property, either because it is too far away from the other council estates, the rent collector cannot get up there, it is not the type of

property that the local authority has in mind, or for some other reason. I think that local authorities need encouragement.

Mr. Mellish: It has been our general policy since we have been in power so to encourage local authorities. I am glad to tell the hon. Member that the Greater London Borough of Lewisham, for example, does this in a good and persuasive way and has acquired a great deal of property. One cannot, however, do more than encourage local authorities. They cannot be forced to acquire property.

Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Gentleman does not need me to tell him that some boroughs are better at this than others. Knowing how persuasive the hon. Gentleman is, I am sure that he can go round to the boroughs which are not following the advice which I have given and see that they come up to the level of the London Borough of Lewisham, which, I have no doubt, is doing the really good job that the hon. Gentleman says. If others follow that example, this will materially assist the housing problem in Greater London. Possibly this applies in other big conurbations also. If so, they should consider the experience of London.
While I am on the subject of London, I thought that the Minister's remarks about the green belt were a little ominous. The right hon. Gentleman went a lot further than I have heard him go before in saying that there should be no bar on the outward spread of building around the big cities unless the land concerned had been put to good recreational or other use. In other words, we are not to have the blanket green belt policy which has hitherto been observed by Governments of both complexions, whether Conservative or Socialist.
I would like the Minister to think again about this. I believe it to be entirely the wrong policy. I do not want to see Greater London continually spreading outwards. My constituency has some of the most beautiful country in Greater London which is very much enjoyed by the people from inner London, who come out to us at weekends and bank holidays and who find a bit of green within easy reach of their homes. I do not, however, speak of it from that point of view.
It is the general policy of population dispersal which conditions my thinking on this subject. I do not wish to see the major cities growing still larger. I wish to see a much better relationship of the regions one to another concerning population growth. That means not encouraging the further growth of places like Birmingham, Manchester and London, but creating completely new centres of growth well away from those places so that there is no movement of population between them.
I do not think that the Government have gone nearly far enough in that direction. If they adopt the policy of nibbling away at the green belt, which seemed to be in the Minister's mind, that would be extremely reactionary. I hope that I have misunderstood what the Minister said. All Governments have failed in thinking of this policy of dispersal in a really imaginative way.
I was reading an article last week about a scheme proposed by Mr. Teggin—I wonder whether the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has seen this—about the idea of having a new city on the Wash. Instead of having small new towns of 100,000 or 120,000, Mr. Teggin is proposing that in this new Wash city there should be 750,000 people—a complete new city—and the author of this article, Dr. Peter Odell, says that it would fit in particularly well now that gas has been discovered in large quantities in the North Sea. Of course, this is not the only argument in favour of the Wash city, but it is an example of the kind of imaginative thinking that the Government ought to be pursuing instead of just encouraging the growth of our large cities and tinkering away at the problem of building new towns within access of the conurbations or expanded towns where the people living in those towns can easily get into London for employment. This is not dispersal at all, and the Government should consider this matter very seriously.
I have already mentioned the Rent Act. I think that in spite of the fact that we had a debate the other day initiated by the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun), this ought not to be left out of a general debate on housing and building. The effect of the Rent Act, as we have observed it so far, is one of the most important features of the present theme. As I was not able to take part

in that debate, due to other commitments, I should like to say to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that although there has been some improvement in the situation, we have not yet reached the stage where evictions can be prevented altogether and where no one whatsoever is thrown out on the street. That was, after all, the purpose of the Act.
The problem of homelessness is still with us. We still have the service tenants who lose homes through no fault of their own, and we have the problem of caravans, which I have mentioned to the hon. Gentleman before. This is becoming even more serious now that we have the 1965 Rent Act. People who live in caravans are placed in a much more inferior position compared with that of anybody else in the country. They have no right of protection whatsoever against arbitrary eviction by the site operator at a moment's notice. Very few of them have written agreements, in spite of the fact that the National Caravan Council has recommended its members to supply written agreements, and, of course, not all site operators are members of the National Caravan Council. No local authority, it seems, will accept responsibility for a person who is turned off a caravan site. What does he do? He goes to another site operator and perhaps pays a further fee of £50 to £150 to get a new plot, and he is there with no security of tenure again. As the hon. Gentleman, I hope, can imagine, this is a very unsettling kind of life which leads to great anxiety.
I have a case in my constituency of three families who have been given notice to quit by the end of this month. One is a family with two small children aged two and four. The husband works at one of our big London power stations. This is a very essential occupation in Greater London, but it is not an occupation which is particularly well rewarded and it is no use anybody telling me that my constituent can go and buy a house. As he has been at this place for a matter of only two or three years, under the rules agreed by all the London boroughs, he will not be put into one of their houses.
What advice can I give him? I have telephoned practically every chief officer on the local authority and I have received a great deal of sympathy, but the fact


remains that my constituent's caravan is going to be towed on to the street at the end of the month. He will then be trespassing and, so far as I can see, there is nothing that I can do to help him. I wish the Government would give attention to this problem, because there are nearly 300,000 people living in caravans and they are entitled to the same kind of protection as the Government have given to those who live in houses.
Before I leave the question of rented housing, I should like to take up the Minister's remarks about the improved subsidies which were introduced by the present Government. Since the new subsidies were first announced, and certainly since they were planned by the Government, the costs of building have risen considerably. I have some figures which were given at a G.L.C. meeting on 17th May this year. They show that the average capital cost—I think this must be for a three-bedroom house—excluding land, has risen from £4,300 in the year ending 31st December, 1964, to £5,040 in the year ending 31st December, 1965, which, as the hon. Gentleman will see, is a very considerable rise indeed. I suggest to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that it is no good the Government announcing increased subsidies, which, as he knows, my party welcomes, if at the same time these are going to be practically swallowed up in the enormous rise in building costs.
I must say that there are certain things that could be done more energetically to limit this most steep rise in housing costs. The question of industrialised building methods has been mentioned, and the G.L.C. has done a great deal in this respect. The G.L.C. is going into industrialised building on a large scale, and it is already beginning to derive some financial benefit from it. At the beginning of the National Building Agency's existence it was very difficult to get any hard and fast figures in relation to what the contractors expected industrialised systems to do as regards the cost of an individual house. But now we are beginning to show results. I understand that the houses that are now being built for the Greater London Council—three-bedroom houses of very nice design which I saw at the I.B.S.A.C. Exhibition the other day—are costing £2,250 which I believe is less than

the average tender price for a three-bedroom house constructed by conventional methods.
But this is not the end of the line, and if we can push the quantities up and reach a level of 40 per cent. of total local authority building, we shall find that industrialised systems will save something like 25 per cent. on the cost of a house. Therefore, whatever the Government have done so far, it is not enough. Much more needs to be done to persuade local authorities to adopt these new methods, and, as the Minister said, to educate them in applying these methods.
I must also refer briefly to the speech of the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). I agree with every word that he said about the effect of the Selective Employment Tax on the construction industry. This had already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) in his speech during the Budget debate, and indeed my right hon. Friend also mentioned the other problem discussed by the former Minister—that of the proliferation of the one-man-only labour sub-contractors, which had been one of the central themes of the excellent maiden speech made by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Hilton) in the Second Reading debate on the Building Control Bill. As the Parliamentary Secretary will be aware, the hon. Member is in a position to speak with some considerable experience of this matter because he has for some time been the research officer of the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives. Therefore, I hope these views will be conveyed to the Chancellor because he has had them now from his hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green who is an expert on the subject; he has heard them from the former Minister; he has heard them directly from my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland, and no doubt he has had representations from the building industry itself. This is a situation which must cause everybody the greatest anxiety, and it is not too late for the Chancellor to think again about his proposals for the construction industry as he has already done, wisely, for agriculture.
Finally, I come to the question of home ownership. I think it must be a matter of great anxiety that the building


societies have now decided, I gather, to raise their lending rates to 7⅛ per cent. But so far as I can see, under existing circumstances they cannot be blamed for what has happened. They asked the Chancellor to make some concessions in his Finance Bill, and this he refused to do. He could have done it last year when my hon. Friends and I put down an Amendment which would have exempted the building societies from Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax. I still think that that would have been a sensible thing to do, because the profits of a building society are not profits in the sense in which that word is used for an ordinary commercial or industrial company. They do not belong to equity shareholders who have no part in the company itself. They are used to finance further lending by the companies and so expand the number of people who can own their own homes. There is, therefore, a strong case—it would be out of order to develop it now—for some tax concessions to the building societies to help them to keep their interest rates down to a reasonable level.
I do not know what the pros and cons of the disagreement on reserve ratios between the Minister and the building societies may be. It would have been helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could have said a little more about this subject in his opening speech. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman who is to wind up will tell us why the Government are confident that reserve ratios much lower than their present levels would be satisfactory and why the building societies for their part consider that they must be maintained at their present level.
If there is this disagreement between the Minister and the building societies, one method of resolving it would be by the Government guaranteeing the building societies if they reduced their reserve ratios below the level they think appropriate. That is a question which might be discussed with the building societies to help in reaching agreement with them.
There seems to have been a lack of communication between the Government and the building societies. There have been so many areas of disagreement. The building societies have said that the two-tier interest rate scheme is totally unworkable. If we are to extend home ownership into income groups lower than those at present able to benefit from

mortgages, we shall have to think again about this scheme, and, perhaps, adopt something along the lines of the Merrett-Sykes proposals under which every person who borrowed from a building society, whatever his actual tax rate, would be able to deduct at the standard rate from the payment he made to the building society, the society then being able to reclaim that afterwards.

Mr. Mellish: The building societies have never said that our proposed mortgage schemes are totally unworkable. They have said that they have another scheme which they think is better.

Mr. Lubbock: That is a matter of interpretation of what the building societies have said. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says because, no doubt, he has been in closer contact with the building societies than I have. But there is no difference between us that the building societies do not like the Government's proposed scheme. It ought to be possible, in discussions with them, for the Government to achieve the same objective of helping people in lower income groups than are at present able to take out mortgages without at the same time imposing the enormous administrative burdens on the societies which, I understand, they say the Government's scheme would involve.
Since the Labour Government came into office, they have done only marginally better than the Tories did in their final year of office. After a year and a half of Socialist Government, they cannot expect to go on using the excuse of Tory mismanagement. They are still more than 25 per cent below the target of 500,000 houses which, quite rightly, they set for themselves by 1969–70, and, although the Minister has assured us once again today that the target will be met, I should have greater confidence if the figures given by him today had been more encouraging.
I make no complaint about those figures being given in the middle of the debate. It was helpful to have them in advance of publication so that we could consider them before we made our speeches, and I thought it rather ungracious of the Opposition to criticise.

Mr. Rippon: Come, come. Does the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that interventions prolong speeches.

Mr. Lubbock: I appologise, Mr. Speaker. I am just coming to the end. It appears from the figures which the Minister gave that completions in the local authority sector are running at the same rate as last year, whereas in the private sector they are considerably down, so that, taking the total figures for the first four months, we are not doing as well as we did in 1965. No doubt, there is a good explanation for this. The weather always has something to do with it, and the Minister mentioned that.
What we want before the debate ends is an assurance from the Government that they expect during 1966 at least to exceed the number of completions we had in 1965. There must be a considerable improvement in the housing situation before the Labour Government's performance matches the promises which they made at the election times. Although we on this bench are not prepared to support the sweeping and inaccurate attacks made on them by the Tories this afternoon, we do not think that either Minister has a right to take pride in merely keeping pace with Tory achievements while promising the millenium in four years.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. George Rogers: At the outset, I wish to refer to the two maiden speeches we heard today, two excellent speeches in a long series of excellent maiden speeches since this Parliament assembled.
My next-door neighbour, the hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) has much the same problems in many respects as I have. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) was, probably, the first man in the House ever to say that it was an honour to be a Whip. I speak as one who was a colleague of our much respected Harriet Slater, the former Member for that constituency, whom we all admired and were extremely fond of.
What amazes me is the lack of nerves which all the new Members show. They speak felicitously, with easy phrasing quite unlike the stammering which most of us experienced when we first came here—I know I did—and they seem to have none of the humility which we had

when we first entered Parliament. Whether this is because, in the last few years, we did not create an impression in the country which would give new Members humility, I do not know, but they certainly seem to have none of the humility and nervousness which most of us experienced.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) said that the House tried to make new Members feel at home in their maiden speeches. He might have added that, in their subsequent speeches, their reception may make them wish that they were. I can assure the two hon. Members that the cut and thrust of debate in the House can be fierce at times. I propose now to give an example in the comments I have to make about the Opposition Front Bench spokesman today.
I do not know what happened to the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) between his defeat in 1964 and his return here at the last election. He used to be an equable, balanced man whom we all respected. He has come back an insecure neurotic. He cannot sit still for five minutes. He cannot bear to hear something with which he disagrees without jumping up and interrupting. I do not believe that, in all my 21 years here, I have ever known a Minister to be interrupted so much by interventions and sedentary interjections as my right hon. Friend was today.
It is a good job for the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he was dealing with that Minister, because he might otherwise have been handled much more harshly. I hope that he will settle down and, after reflection on the rebuke which the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) gave him for his attack upon us, will subside into that ordered and responsible assessment of our achievements with which we were familiar in the last Parliament. If not, he will cease to have the respect which we once so freely gave him.
I never cease to be surprised, after 21 years, at the wonderful amnesia about their own record which the Tories can produce at any given moment. They have a sublime impertinence when dealing with their own faults and records and an equally sublime impertinence when dealing with the records of others. They reduce their own faults to an infinitesimal


point which is almost non-existent, but, on the other hand, they exaggerate our faults to an extent which becomes sheer fantasy.
Why do they bother? The electorate gave the verdict at the last General Election on the views which the right hon. Gentleman expressed this afternoon. Yet before we have been in office a month he comes forward with his half-baked extravaganza about the failures of the Government. Even the hon. Member for Orpington has to admit that we have done fractionally better than the Tories.
We know that the hon. Member for Orpington is impartial, so if he says that we have done fractionally better that is an objective assessment. After 16 months with a majority of between one and three and one month with a good majority, we have done fractionally better than the Tories did. I feel confident that in five years we shall have done substantially better than the Tory Party did.
Let the Opposition not be at all desponded. If, after three or four years, the Labour Government have not done better than the Tory Party did in respect of housing, the most vociferous criticism will come not from the Opposition benches, but from this side of the House. If the Government do not produce land at a reasonable price, if the Land Commission does not work, and if the Government do not carry out the promises that we made to the electorate, let the right hon. Gentleman opposite rest assured that my hon. Friends and I will have a very strong measure of criticism.
But I know perfectly well that if that should happen the most disappointed people will be the Ministers themselves, because they passionately desire, as we all do, to solve the hideous housing problem which is a stain upon our nation, and still represents some of the worst slums in the world, and certainly the worst in Europe, at least the most developed parts of it.
One hon. Member opposite who should know better was actually unaware that thousands of tenants were evicted without court orders. He said "If there were tenants evicted without court orders". But thousands were evicted by private bailiffs. When property was decontrolled there was no need to go to court for an order. Yet one hon.

Member was unaware of this fact. Perhaps this amnesia about the record of the Tory Party is not surprising. The hon. Member is an estate agent. Perhaps his point of view would not be particularly towards the hardships of tenants. It would be in another direction.
There were also the remarks of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). He actually chided the Minister for including Northern Ireland in the housing figures because it had a Tory majority. When did the Tory Party forbear to take the credit for the houses put up by Labour-controlled authorities? They boasted about their housing record for years when in most of those years a large proportion of the increase in housing was the result of the work of vigorous Labour housing authorities. Indeed, the London County Council would have done far better than it did if the Tories had not restricted it by their financial policy, and if they had not refused to give it permission for any more out-county estates at a time when it needed out-county estates to take the overspill resulting from its large slum clearance plans.
This brings me to my constituency. It is all very well to talk about owner-occupiers, mortgage rates and high interest charges, but in North Kensington, South Paddington and many other parts of London the problem is one of rented property. There is no land for either small or large builders to erect houses on which building societies can grant money. There is no land there at all. The old property is, in many cases, too bad to be bought, and building societies will not give mortgages on it. Even where local authorities grant mortgages, they will not give more than a proportion of the selling price because the property is old and rotten and in many cases not worth the money and the price has simply been inflated as a result of the policies pursued by the Tory Party when in office.
What we want is emphasis upon a drive to clear our disgraceful slum areas and house the people of London and the other great conurbations in decent places worthy of the twentieth century. This is wanted for people who have lived in the twilight areas far too long.
The Minister rightly said that if people do not like the way in which their local


authority behaves they can use the ballot box. That is all right for some areas, but it does not work in the Royal Borough of Kensington. It has been a Royal borough since about 1890, and it has never had anything but a Conservative majority. In its wildest moments it never even got so far left as the Liberal Party in the days of Lloyd George. It has always been Tory. So it is a one-party State, and it has all the complacence of a permanent one-party majority. All power corrupts, and it certainly has corrupted the energy and initiative of my local authority.
The problem that we have in Kensington is the result of 50 years of complacency, 50 years of handing over housing responsibilities to housing associations and anyone else who would take them off the hands of the local authority, rather than that it should do the work itself. Since the war it has done better. It started very slowly, but it has got better. I understand that the Government have now asked it for a greater target. When the Minister has the information, I should like to know how far it is towards achieving that target and whether he can give it any assistance to increase the tempo with which the target is being achieved so that my people may have more hope than they have at the moment.

Mr. Mellish: I can tell my hon. Friend that the present Minister has told the Royal borough that it can build to capacity and that if it comes forward with any extra demands for housing it will be given permission. I can only say that, as in the case of many other London boroughs, its first three months' performance is not at all a happy one, but I do not want to condemn the borough on a three months' performance. However, my hon. Friend can take it from me that something will be done in the forthcoming months to ensure that the target which the borough has been given is realised.

Mr. Rogers: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information.
I shall be glad of any help that he can give the Greater London Council over its comprehensive redevelopment of the Kensal New Town, which was envisaged immediately after the racial troubles in my constituency in 1957. We were supposed then to be a special borough

because of our special problem, but we have seen precious little special help so far. Also, the scheme for the comprehensive redevelopment of that area, which was proposed then, has not yet begun.
I know that this is not the fault of the Greater London Council. It needs extra help from the Government. If the Government can give any extra help, I shall be very grateful if they will do so.

Mr. James Allason: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the delay in the development of the Kensal New Town was entirely the fault of the Labour-controlled London County Council, and that the Kensington Borough Council has been extremely keen to press forward with this for many years?

Mr. Rogers: This is dangerous ground for the hon. Member. One of the reasons why rehousing in Kensington has always been so slow is that for years the borough council refused to let the London County Council into the borough to do any of the rehousing. The London County Council wanted to do this very often, but the borough council refused. I know that the borough council resents the fact that the Greater London Council has come into the area at all now. Responsibility for this lies in the broader aspects of the policy introduced by the last Government.
I am not surprised that there has been some reduction in the tempo of new house building. We are changing sights a little, and altering direction. We are altering taxation. All this is bound to cause a certain loss of confidence, especially among the smaller builders. The large contractors—the kind of firm with which the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) is concerned—can handle this sort of thing. They have expert staff and large reserves. It is more difficult for the smaller man. Furthermore, he is apprehensive.
For years he has been making hay while the sun shines. He has made a lot of money. He has paid too much for land, but this was because he knew that in boom conditions he could get it back from the purchaser. House and land prices have been inflated by the business of auctioning every piece of available land for the highest price to the builder, who knew that he could get it back from the prospective purchaser. But with betterment tax and the other new taxes he


now feels that he will not make so much money for himself.
Some builders are not at all public-spirited. They are not in building to satisfy a social need but because, like the landlords, they are able to fill their pockets satisfactorily. There is the builder who, knowing that a building is scheduled, or that trees are protected by local orders, will chop down the trees and destroy the protected buildings because he knows that he will merely have to pay a fine, which he can put on the cost of the houses that he will sell in boom conditions. He may be able to get the gullible public to pay for his defiance of laws to protect our property and our trees.
I hope that those luxuries are over. We have have far too many luxurious days since the war. We all know of flats built by private enterprise and advertised as luxury flats, although the only thing about them that is a luxury is the price. If we can bring down the profit margins on these new houses and flats to a reasonable sum by reducing the cost of land we shall be doing the public a good turn.
I am not sure that a certain amount of buyer's resistance has not developed in this matter. Near where I live a number of houses were completed last year, but no extra ones have been built on that site because not one of the completed houses has been sold. The reason is that they are not only too dear, but are ugly, both in design and colour. Because of those defects and the price there is a certain amount of buyer's resistance. The repayments on houses costing £8,000, £9,000, £10,000 and £11,000 which are being erected in the suburbs are ridiculously high. Not many people have incomes large enough to be able to afford these repayments over many years.
I agree with most of what the hon. Member for Orpington said about the building societies. He talked a good deal of sound sense. I wonder whether the Government have explored the question of interest rates. When I was in New Zealand, at the Commonwealth conference at the end of last year, I found that that country had several ways of assisting people to buy houses. It had a 3 per cent, interest scheme which, admittedly, was not applicable to every

purchaser. It would be a good idea if the Government made some inquiries about such a scheme, because if New Zealand—a country with far fewer resources than ours—can operate such a scheme, even on a limited basis, we should be able to do something like it, where necessary.
I will now leave the debate to other Members. My feeling is that it is premature. The country has shown that it wanted us to be given a chance to prove that we can do the job we said we would do. The Opposition are wasting time having this debate. Like the electors, they should have given us a fair crack of the whip. I am quite confident that the Government will do the job that they have set out to do, and that by the time we next go to the electors we shall have a housing record of which we can be proud, and which will not have been gained at the expense of tenants exploited by private landlords, as was the case in the old days.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Jones: I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price) on his maiden speech. He is the only hon. Member now in the Chamber who made his maiden speech today, but the fact that we have had no less than four in this housing debate—and that all those who have made maiden speeches have spoken with authority and deep knowledge—is an indication of the importance of housing not only socially and economically but in respect of every facet of the nation's life.
I entirely agree with the closing remark of the hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. George Rogers) to the effect that the Government are changing the emphasis on housing, and that in the interim period there is bound to be a lessening of construction work. If that admission had been clearly made by the Minister earlier in the debate it would have been accepted by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but the Minister went out of his way to defend the Government's policy, giving no explanation of the fact that there is a lessening of building activity generally, not only in completions but in starts.
The right hon. Gentleman caused amusement to hon. Members on both sides when he pleaded the not bad but poorer


weather conditions this year. We know how wet it has been, but it has not been wet to the extent that it can in any way have affected house completions or starts. That argument is not acceptable to anyone with a close knowledge of the building and contracting industries.
The circumstances of the programme that we see today have arisen because of the changes in Government policy, to some extent because of the promises they have made, and also because of the proposals which have led to increasing uncertainty both in the private and public sectors of the building industry. These uncertainties are by no means resolved, and the Minister has not made any contribution to their resolution by his remarks today.
We are able to see no progress on the question of concessional interest rate. The interest rate is rising against the Government's hopes and despite every effort on their part. Despite the fact that they have been in consultation with building societies for about 12 months, this has not brought the Government and building societies any closer together. I pay tribute to the efforts that the Government have made, but there is a clear failure here. A little pique is involved in the Government's now taking to the Prices and Incomes Board the proposals of the building societies for a 7⅛ per cent. interest rate. During a period of high interest rates this increase is bound to be reflected right through the economy, as it has been in the mortgage rates for the Greater London Council.
For the Minister, when challenged on that, to say that it is a fixed rate surely is a denial of most of his own case, because it is a fixed high rate—a fixed higher rate than ever before. The advantage of building society rates is that they move up or down but not so the mortgages made available by local authorities. So, to some extent, the Minister was denying his own case in this regard.
We have yet to see the substance of the Government's proposal and promises have now been made for at least 18 months on interest rates. This has led to uncertainty among house buyers. Many house purchasers, prudently, have said, "I shall not buy a house with the present level of interest rates; I shall wait and

see what the Government's proposals are." But the longer they have waited the more difficult their circumstances have become and the more expensive have the interest rates turned out to have been.
This is the difficulty. I see the Government's point of view in trying to paint a good picture, to show a promising policy, but they do so regardless apparently of their ability to fulfil the undertakings they are making. That is the great difficulty of the Government today in their housing policy and to some extent they have only themselves to blame.
The same applies to builders and developers. There is, as the hon. Member for Kensington, North said, a sales resistance, but, in addition, there are the unknown features and the uncertainty of the proposals for the Land Commission. These are causing developers to hesitate to plan their development schemes years ahead of their immediate requirements.
Building contractors, both large and small, plan, if prudent, three, four or five years ahead, and they are not feeling the measure of confidence in the situation to expend the substantial sums involved in the necessary land acquisitions. They cannot say what the cost of that land will stand at when eventually they will be enabled to build. The incidence of the levy, and so on, is there, but indeterminate, and it introduces a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity.
We have had the Government's proposals on leasehold reform. Much of the development now taking place of multi-storey flats for sale is caught by the White Paper's proposals. It is a very satisfactory form of development, giving as it does a high density, being properly designed, a high standard of amenity, on central sites convenient for people's employment without the responsibility for the maintenance of gardens, for which there is a lessening demand.
But the implications of the leasehold reform proposals of the Government are leading builders to hesitate to embark on schemes of this character. This is not only so in the private sector, but also in the public sector, where local authorities have been equally unsure of the measure of development and building they should undertake. They have suffered desperately this year on the question of interest


rates, which has made development costly and the interim period of development a substantial debit on their housing revenue accounts. They have also had the difficulties of higher rents.
The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) mentioned that, in Croydon, the rents for council houses have gone up by as much as £1 per week. This must lead local authorities which are conscious of their housing responsibilities to hesitate and wonder whether council house rents are not getting to the point at which many of the applicants on their lists will lose the ability to pay and where many people will decide to purchase a house if they can get the deposit together.
So, for the local authorities, there is this uncertainty and, in addition, the new subsidy arrangements meant that many schemes deferred for perhaps six or nine months during the past year, waiting to see the level at which the new subsidies would be placed. Although selected authorities were allowed to take advantage of the higher subsidies for schemes that had been started in the interim period, this was not previously known and prudent authorities hesitated to embark on schemes without knowing the financial implications involved.
The building consortia among local authorities, initiated by the last Government, were getting substantially under way through the ability they offered their members to enter into bulk purchasing arrangements. These have also encountered difficulty. For example, a consortium in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire had been proposing to base its arrangements on 3,000 units for 1966 but was told that the programme would be cut by one-third. This affected not only the plans of the consortium, but, also, building generally in the public sector.
So we have this rather bewildering pattern of change. Although it has been said that perhaps the debate is premature, surely an 18-month period is long enough for the Administration to begin to get the bugs out of this thing and begin to make up their minds and implement decisions they reach. But so many decisions are still unresolved. There is still uncertainty. Essentially, this stems from the paragraph in the National

Plan in the chapter dealing with housing, which gives the clue to the Government's thinking. Paragraph 3, on page 170, says:
… the house-building programme has never been planned as a whole.
Behind all the Government's thinking is the fact that they are determined to plan the house-building programme. That is the essence of their case. This controls all their thinking and whatever steps they take they are determined to see that these conform to an overall plan.
But the house-building programme has been planned before. It was planned between 1945 and 1951 with the disastrous result of licensing and the proportion of public sector building fixed at two-thirds and the private sector at one-third. It failed dismally then and I predict that we shall see a failure in house building again if the Government put their determination to plan the whole thing as first priority. There are so many factors in house building. This is also emphasised in the National Plan, which points out that large numbers of smaller builders are engaged in the industry. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned this today. The National Plan goes on:
… the Government think it essential to try to achieve a steady and predictable house-building programme, planned as between the public and private sectors …".
This the Government will find impracticable. It is beginning to lie at the root of their problems. What they were not content to do was to build upon what was a successful housing programme up to the end of 1964, when a record number of house completions was achieved, followed by a higher number of completions last year as a flow-over from the earlier programme. If they were content to build upon that success, without trying to strike at the very roots of how that success was achieved they would stand a much better chance of substantially enlarged housing programme.
In many parts of the country there are adequate numbers of council houses to meet the new requirements of those in need of housing assistance. I welcome the emphasis which the Minister placed on the selection of expansion in the public sector. This is mentioned in the White Paper, Housing Programme


1965–70, paragraph 7, with which I agree, says:
… the Government's aim to increase the building programme fastest in the regions where housing needs are greatest—where existing housing is exceptionally bad or inadequate or where new housing is wanted to assist economic growth.
Looking at paragraph 12, there is the surprising words:
While the Government must provide for a steady growth of building for owner-occupation it would be criminal—
what an extraordinary word to use—
at the present time not to allow for an even faster growth of building to let.
We do need a faster growth of building to let, but on a selective basis. The burden of my case is that houses for owner-occupation should be a priority call upon our resources, with equal priority in the public sector to slum clearance and residential development, building in the development areas, building in London, and the residential requirements in the new towns. Where subsidised accommodation is adequate, local authorities should be encouraged to sell to tenants in circumstances where this would not be detrimental to estate management.
In this way, much of the interest burden on the housing revenue accounts of local authorities would be lifted. In supporting house ownership the Government are paying lip-service to it and not making an effective policy of house building for sale part of their proposals. It is a programme of this character which would be most likely to ensure a successful housing policy.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. Allan Williams: When I took my place in the Chamber at 3.30 p.m. I had a speech prepared which may not have been logical in its points, but which was logical in its flow. Now, having eliminated those points which have already been discussed, and having added some others which I would like to answer, I am afraid that I will probably have to flit from point to point. I beg the indulgence of the House in so doing.
Many of us will remember that during their last years of office Tory Ministers stamped around the countryside warning us that as a nation we were to have to

increase production in our building industry by about 50 per cent. by the early 1970s. They warned us, quite rightly, that we would have to do this with an increase in manpower of only 2 per cent. Surely it follows from this that what is needed is a more efficient use of manpower, or to put it another way, the manpower at present being used in the building industry is not being used intelligently or efficiently. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must make up their minds about what they want. Do they want more efficient employment in the industry?
Many of them have criticised us simply on the grounds that as a result of the Selective Employment Tax things in the industry will not be quite as they were. This is the essence of achieving more efficiency in any industry. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) said that the tax could have a damaging effect, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) made a similar point. No one would deny that this tax may have a harmful effect. Nearly every tax can or does have an harmful effect on some sector of the economy.
What we have to ask is what are the alternatives, what would the Opposition have done, and what harmful effects would have arisen as a result of their measures and whether they would have been worse than those resulting from ours. We have been told that the tax will affect prices. This could be true, but it need not be—

Mr. A. P. Costain: Has the hon. Member seen an Answer by his own Minister to a Question I put down, in which the Minister admitted that the tax would increase prices? Why does the hon. Member say that it might when the Minister admits that it will?

Mr. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman could be patient, no doubt all of these mysteries will be solved for him.
I said that it may, and in some cases perhaps, will affect prices. In other cases it may not, as I will demonstrate in a moment. In some areas, such as London, it would be foolish to pretend that the price of housing is based upon the cost of housing. In many of the key areas of the country there is a pure demand and supply position in which the shortage


of housing and the excessive demand for it dictates the price level, and these prices are far higher than any level which would be justified by costs.
In these cases the Selective Employment Tax need make no difference at all. Even in the areas where these conditions do not apply the industry could, if it had the will, absorb part or, in some cases, the whole of the extra cost which this tax could impose. Better use could be made of labour. Far too much labour is wasted on the building sites through lack of supervision; far too much labour is wasted simply because of a lack of business "know-how." Far too many small and medium-sized building sites have no phasing whatever of their ordering of supplies. Consequently, for days on end, sometimes for weeks, workers are doing little or nothing or skilled workers may be doing unskilled work, waiting for essential supplies.
Again, the building sites could adopt better techniques in order to absorb some of these costs even though it may not absorb all of them. We have heard fears voiced by hon. Gentlemen opposite that this could force small builders out of business. This could be true, but does that really matter? About 40 per cent, of the output of the building industry comes from firms employing less than 25 men. Perhaps some of these small builders need to be forced out of business so that their labour force could be released to go to the more efficient unit. These efficient firms could even end up with reduced labour costs. At present, the big and efficient firms who have a careful timetable of production are having to pay a premium on their labour costs to ensure that they have the amount of labour needed. It could be that the release of labour from the smaller and inefficient firms would lead to greater efficiency in industry.
Another point which was made was that we had failed to enable people to own their own home. Indeed, this point was made by the Leader of the Opposition over the weekend. As I will demonstrate with figures later, hon. Members opposite are hardly in a position to attack us on this score since, during their last 10 years of office, at least 380,000 people who could have had homes—and before anyone jumps up to ask me to

explain this, let me say that I will explain it later—were denied homes by the calculated housing policy of the Conservative Government.
Right hon. and hon. Members opposite talk about the owning of homes. For 13 years they tolerated and preserved a situation—we have heard it eulogised this evening—in which a person could pay for his house and not own it. It is called the leasehold system. I am sure that most hon. Members know how this system works. At the end of the lease, despite the fact that a person has paid for the house, it reverts to the ground landlord and becomes his property, and the leaseholder can be forced to put it in good condition for the ground landlord to take it from him.
We had a debate on the leasehold system shortly before the dissolution of Parliament. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite denied in that debate that the leasehold system caused hardship. They said that leaseholders should be able to buy their homes at a fair market price. They used the word "fair", so it sounded reasonable. But when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Land and Natural Resources probed a little further into what they meant by a "fair market price", the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) admitted that he meant that not only did the leaseholder have to pay for the plot, but that he had to pay again for the bricks and mortar. This was their interpretation of a fair leasehold policy.
Those of us who sat through the debate well remember that certain hon. Members opposite described leashold reform as, on the one hand, a spivs' charter, and, on the other, confiscation. If right hon. and hon. Members opposite felt as emotively strongly as this and that leasehold reform was so iniquitous, what should their reaction have been? Surely they had a clear responsibility, which was to march into the Division Lobby against leashold reform. After all, they had opposed it for 13 years. But nothing would have tempted them into the Lobby at that time because they knew that an election was near. Although they thought it an immoral Bill—it had to be if it was confiscation and a spivs' charter—they could bury their consciences in view of the imminence of a General Election.


[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If any hon. Member opposite wants to intervene to deny that, he is welcome to do so. I should be fascinated to hear his denial.
Another allegation made against the Government is that we failed to keep up the rate of house building. The first thing which has to be made clear is that we built more houses than the Tories ever built. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We did. The official figures support that. I have an Answer, dated only yesterday, on this point. We did build more houses than the Conservative Party built, and we are building more houses now than the Conservative Party ever built. Its spokesman today said that what we needed was a continuation of what he described as the progressive Conservative policies on house building. He said that we must keep moving forward in the house production race. I am sure that all hon. Members on this side of the House agree with that. But I am not sure that all hon. Members opposite agree with it.
If they agree with their spokesman, where were they in 1955, 1956, 1957, and 1958? In each of those years the figure of housing output was lower than it was for the year before. In 1954, the Conservatives reached a level of house building which they did not equal until 1964. Where were their consciences and good intentions during those ten years? By 1958, in Wales, they were building only 66 houses for every 100 houses they built in 1954. In England, they built only 79 houses for every 100 houses they built in 1954. It took them until 1964 to creep back up, and at last they got beyond the 1954 figure. This is why I say that the Conservative Government cost 380,000 people their homes.
In answer to a Question which I put to the Minister of Housing on 3rd August, which asked how many more houses would have been built in England and Wales had only the 1954 output been maintained—and we have heard from the Conservative Party today that it must be the intention of any efficient Government to maintain and, indeed, accelerate the level of building—I was told that 352,000 more houses would have been built in England alone, the equivalent of one year and two months' output, and that 30,000 more houses would have been built in

Wales, the equivalent of two years' out-put.
Who can seriously believe the talk of right hon. and hon. Members opposite about what would have been achieved had the Conservative Party been reelected? They tell us that they would have built more houses than we built last year. I am tempted to ask: with what? They have spoken today about a surplus of bricks. We can talk about a deficiency of bricks when we came to power. At the end of September, 1964, there were four days' supply of bricks in the brick yards. What were right hon. and hon. Member going to build the houses with—promises? Perhaps they would have used Conservative Party election manifestos.
What was the Tories' policy towards housing? The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), at the Conservative Party conference—I am sure that no good Conservative would lie at the Conservative Party conference—in 1963, which is a significant year because the Tories knew that there had to be an election by 1964 and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not be held back by any inhibitions, said that it "would not be realistic" to set a housing programme of 500,000. But by 1965 the Tories had changed their minds and were saying that they could build 500,000 houses, and a year earlier than we could.

Mr. Costain: Would the hon. Gentleman admit that by the ordinary progression of increase the building of 500,000 houses was quite possible? But his own Government's National Plan shows a reduction in increased production. How does the hon. Gentleman explain that?

Mr. Williams: I would say to the hon. Gentleman that I am surprised that the Conservative Government had as Minister of Housing someone who so little understood what was going on. With all the information of a Department available to him, he should have been quite capable of estimating the number of houses which would be built next year. So it should not have come as a surprise to him to find that there was an increase in the number of houses built in 1964 and 1965. We must assume that, since the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East said that it was not realistic to set a housing programme of 500,000. it really was not realistic in his opinion.
In Wales, this year is a remarkable boom year in building. Last year we increased house building in Wales by 3 per cent. over that in the year before. In the first quarter alone of this year we are 16½ per cent. up, on starts of building, on the same period last year. For every six houses which were being built in Wales last year there are seven being built this year. This is a measure of the attainment of this Government in housing.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Does the hon. Member appreciate that while these wonderful things are happening in Wales, in Scotland completions, starts, and tenders are all very seriously down this quarter?

Mr. Williams: I do not know the statistics in Scotland, and I do not pretend to. I will take the hon. Member's word for that. All I can say is that in the area of the country which I represent we are getting better treatment in housing than we have ever had, and for this we are very grateful.
Finally, because I know one or two other hon. Gentlemen want to speak—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—I would briefly urge that the Minister looks to some practical measures which would be of great help to people who want to buy their own houses, and one of these would be to impose some sort of control upon solicitors' costs and some control on estate agents' costs; because if we add solicitors' costs in buying and selling to the estate agents' costs we often find that, together, they come to as much as 5 per cent. of the deposit on a house. This would itself facilitate the home ownership which we want in this country.
My final point I would ask the Minister to have regard to is, that high priority be given to the need to preserve older houses, because far too little attention was given to those when right hon. Members opposite were in office, when, during a phase in Wales when 18,000 houses were being built to replace houses which were derelict, a further 10,000 were actually allowed to slide into disrepair. It does not make much sense to be gearing up the industry when, at the same time, we are chasing our tails by unnecessarily adding to the demand for housing.
I suggest that at last we are having a positive approach to the country's housing needs, and that the past record of the

Conservative Government in no way enables the Conservatives today to criticise our Government on this matter.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. H. P. G. Channon: As I know that a number of other hon. Members wish to speak, I shall try to be brief, but I must take up the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) on one point. The only defence we have had so far from the benches opposite of the Selective Employment Tax being imposed on the construction industry is that it will force out small builders, drive them bankrupt and that that will be a good thing. If that is the explanation of the Government's imposing this tax on industry, then they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Alan Williams: I did make the point that it could lead to the redistribution of labour within the industry and that it could lead to greater efficiency. I trust the hon. Member will not overlook this argument.

Mr. Channon: Indeed I will not, and I hope the hon. Member will not overlook the fact that one-third of the industry is involved in maintenance work and that it will be extremely difficult to raise that to greater efficiency.
I hope that the House rather than take the hon. Member's views will take those of the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). I was delighted he spoke earlier in this debate, and I agree with practically everything he said. In particular, he was quite right about the Selective Employment Tax. It is a fantastic situation that the Government should impose a tax upon the building industry, when the object is to encourage its output—a tax which, as was pointed out, will help the manufacturers of fruit machines. It is fantastic to impose a tax which penalises the people building houses. I cannot believe any hon. Member, whichever side of the House he sits, wishes to support a policy which penalises builders and charities and helps the manufacturers of fruit machines.
The late Minister of Public Building and Works did the House a service—

Mr. C. Pannell: Not late. I am still here.

Mr. Channon: I should have said the ex-Minister. The right hon. Gentleman


has many years of useful life in front of him in this House.
This is a debate in which the Government are being accused of failing in their house building policies. Hon. Members have sometimes derided what we set about, and what action has been achieved, so may I briefly remind them of the figures, which have not been seriously challenged. There were 434,000 houses under construction at the end of 1964.
Did they build 434,000 houses? Did they build 420,000 houses? They were left with a target of 400,000 houses and they could reach a target of only 352,000 houses. I am glad that at least the Minister of Housing had the decency to say that it is not a record of which he is proud. I should think not. There was a short-fall of 50,000 houses between the target left to the Government and the number built whereas, on 31st December, 1963, there were 381,000 houses under construction and 373,000 houses were produced in 1964, a short-fall of only 8,000.
The Government's failure produced this extraordinary short-fall last year. The hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. George Rogers) put his finger on the point when he spoke of lack of confidence in the building industry. This has been a major factor in what has taken place. Of course there is lack of confidence. How can there not be when we have building control put on, the import surcharge, house prices rising and a Selective Employment Tax? All these factors, naturally, have undermined the confidence of the building industry.
The part of the speech by the right hon. Member for Leeds, West with which I disagreed concerned the stock of bricks. How did he encourage confidence in the brickmaking industry by his policy? In 1964 the brickmakers of this country produced 7,800 million bricks and they were told by the right hon. Gentleman that this was not enough and that they must expand further. They were told that they must produce an extra 600 million bricks in 1965. The target which he wanted achieved was 8,400 million bricks. Does he still wish that they had achieved this target? Had they done so, there would have been 1,100 million bricks in stock

at the end of last year, because at 31st December last year there were 561 million bricks in stock and the industry had reached nothing like the target which the Minister had set.

Mr. Pannell: To be fair, Sir Arthur Worboys was at some pains to tell me, when I asked for this increased production, that it had been the intention to increase production anyway. I do not want to delay the hon. Member in the short time he has available, but if he reads the whole of the speech from which I quoted he will see that this point was very well brought out.

Mr. Channon: I accept that, but it is as well that they did not increase production otherwise the brick situation would have been very much worse than in fact it is. There would have been 1,100 million bricks in stock at the end of December. We heard in earlier debates about 882 million bricks at the end of March. We have heard the April housing figures given by the Minister today. They were given us a week early, and we were delighted to have them. Can the Minister give us the April brick figures? Presumably if the housing figures are available we can also be given the brick figures for April.
It is my guess that when we are told them, whether tonight or later, we shall find that the figures of brick stocks have gone up again. It is my information that bricks are still being stocked all over the country, in spite of the fact that it is the middle of May and that the situation this year is worse than it has ever been. It is worse than it was even after the bad winter of 1962–63, which was the worst winter we have had in this country for years. I believe that the brick situation this year was even worse than it was after that winter. We have a Government-inspired glut of bricks rather than a weather-inspired glut of bricks.
The Minister this afternoon produced figures for the first four months of the year showing that there has been a drop in the housing figures compared with last year. One hon. Member told us that there had been an increase in the figures for Wales, in which case the decline in England must be much more serious even than I thought. The figures are down in Scotland and down in England. I am glad that Wales at least has had some joy out of this.
We were told that the weather was bad. I wonder whether the Minister took the trouble to check with the Meteorological Office, because in fact there was less frost in the winter of 1965–66 than in the winter of 1964–65. I took the trouble to check that with the Meteorological Office. The excuse is therefore totally invalid, and I hope that the Minister will not use it in winding up the debate.
This debate is not about 13 years of Conservative rule, although hon. Members opposite try to ride out of the situation always by quoting the past. Let us have some policy from them. Are they proud of their record and of what is happening this year, when after four months the figures for housing completions are down on the four months of last year, and when even last year they failed to meet their own modest target by 18,000 houses? At this rate of progress, do they expect to reach the target of 500,000 houses a year by 1970? If so, they are going backwards in order to do so, because the figures are going down and not up.
This is a record of failure by the Government. They are building fewer houses and more expensive houses. House prices have risen faster than at any time since figures were first kept. They are higher than they have ever been. Mortgage interest rates are higher. The import surcharge put the prices up. On the Minister's own admission, the Selective Employment Tax will put up the price of houses. What we have had after 17 months of Labour Government—not just of one month—is a Government which has produced more controls on the building industry, for we have started to go back to the old days of building licences and the Government have managed to put up the price of houses higher than they have ever been. Having built fewer houses and having managed to have a shortfall in house-building, hon. Gentlemen opposite say that they are proud of their record.
I suggest—and it was typical of the hon. Member for Orpington to indicate that he would abstain, which is what I think the Liberals will do—that whatever has happened in the past in the housing situation, over the last 17 months the Labour Government have completely

failed to live up to their promises to the electorate in two successive elections.
The Prime Minister said that the Socialists would tackle the housing situation like a war-time operation. Had we tackled the war the way the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are tackling the housing situation, we would have lost. The party opposite has a record of muddle and mismanagement in this sphere, with fewer houses this year than last—fewer, more expensive houses and more controls—and that is the failure which has led us to censure the Government and why we will vote against them tonight.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. Michael Barnes: Some of the hottest exchanges particularly at the beginning of the debate, have been about figures. Let us not talk about statistics—about which set of figures is right and which is wrong—because whether or not the figures are true, I do not want to talk about them. I want to speak about people, people who are hoping to live in the houses about which we are talking today.
Particularly I want to speak about people in London and the great conurbations, for so many of whom the only chance of getting a decent home of their own is to obtain a council place. I was staggered at the laconic remark of the right hon. and learned Member for Hex-ham (Mr. Rippon) when he threw out the phrase about local authorities being allowed to build as fast as they could and as fast as they needed to do. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing has rightly made clear to him what the factual implications are of doing that. What surprised me about the remark was the apparent lack of involvement it showed with those whose only chance of obtaining a decent home is to get a council place.
There is, as the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) said, this Tory obsession with the problems of the owner-occupier. My hon. Friends, on the other hand, are trying to offer to every section of the community—we have had the Rent Act for those living in unfurnished accommodation, and coming along are leasehold reform and the scheme of option mortgages—the right to have a home of their own. Of course we need


to build houses for owner-occupiers, but, as the White Paper rightly says, we need to increase at a much faster rate the building of houses to rent.
It is not completely out of character that hon. Gentlemen opposite should tend to take this view, because when they were in power, from 1953 and throughout the 'fifties, they allowed the number of houses being built by local authorities to decline each year until, in 1961, we had the lowest number built by local authorities since 1948, which, of course, was only three years after the war.
Dealing with London, the Milner Holland Report made it clear that the people hardest hit in the housing situation were familities with below-average incomes with two or three children—and in London one does not have to be earning much below the average to be in trouble with one's housing, particularly if one has a family of any size. So let us talk about families for a moment and forget about statistics. Let us, for example, talk about a family with three children living with the wife's mother. The wife's mother has a three-bedroomed basement flat. She also has two adult children living with her, a man and a woman. The only possible sleeping rota that can be worked out in this family involves the father of the three young children moving out at night to sleep with his brother in another house. Like so many basement flats throughout London, dampness comes in. It means, particularly during the winter months, that the children have a stream of colds and chest complaints of one sort or another.
Let us talk about a different family; about a man who is a baker's rounds-man and who takes home £14 5s. to his wife and three children who live in two rooms in a flat on the top floor of a building. Because they live on the top floor and there are people living in the flat underneath theirs, the children must be very careful not to make too much noise. Being very small, these children are not very good at being quiet. The husband is good about not making a noise because he was brought up under similar conditions, but he does not want to have to train his children to tiptoe across the floor like he had to do when he was small.
When he comes home he may find his eldest child—perhaps aged only 3 or 4—playing on the corner of the street because his wife is busy putting the younger children to bed and there is no room for the eldest child in the flat at the time. The man himself was brought up on street corners and he has felt that he had seen the last of that kind of thing. He does not want his children to have to suffer in that way.
I quote these instances to emphasise that it is important always to keep before our minds when talking on this subject that it is about people rather than figures and statistics. I quote the cases of these people because the only chance they have of being decently housed is of getting a place provided by the local authority. If they were to move out of an unsatisfactory basement flat they would have to be prepared to pay about £8 a week in rent in order to find a suitable unfurnished flat for a family of that size. This is why it is absolutely right that in the National Plan the Government should set a target of 250,000 houses a year built by local authorities and 250,000 built for owner-occupation by 1970. It is no exaggeration to say that the future happiness of thousands of people depends on that target being met.
It is not enough merely to worry about the building of houses. When local authority waiting lists are such a size and the competition for places on lists is so great, it is vital that applications should be dealt with fairly and properly. I hope that the Minister of Housing and Local Government will encourage local authorities to deal with applications all the time as fairly and efficiently as possible. There is room for improvement in this respect. I do not believe that it is a good thing for any administrative organisation, when it receives an application for anything, to send out a printed card with the words on it, "Date as postmark" and stating that a reply will follow in due course. That is a lazy way of dealing with applications. Inevitably, there will be cases where a further communication for some reason or other is not addressed to the applicant. It makes people very angry when they have a card such as this and find that it is not followed tip within a reasonable time.

Mr. William Hamilton: I am not sure which is the constituency


of my hon. Friend. Could he tell us in detail what the policy of his local authority is in allocating houses so that other hon. Members might compare his experience with that in their local authority areas?

Mr. Barnes: My constituency is Brentford and Chiswick, which is in the new London Borough of Hounslow. The local authority is operating a points scheme. I shall not go into details of the scheme because they would be of parochial interest only, but we have to remember when talking of London that local authorities have had difficulty under the reorganisation of local government throughout the London area and through the changing of the size of their areas. If my hon. Friend will allow me, I shall not go off on that tangent.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: Would not my hon. Friend consider that one of the great condemnations we should make of the last Administration, looking at the matter from the point of the view of the council house tenant, is their complete lack of control of land prices particularly in constituencies such as his during the whole 13 years in which the party opposite was in office?

Mr. Barnes: I am sorry, but I missed the beginning of my hon. Friend's remarks because I was distracted. May I be allowed to know what the beginning was?

Mr. O'Malley: I was asking my hon. Friend to consider the rocketing prices of land in great conurbations as a result of the failure of the Tory Party to do anything about it in the whole of their 13 years in office.

Mr. Barnes: Certainly. This is why the Government have their proposals for the Land Commission.

Mr. R. Chichester-Clark: Would the hon. Gentleman discourage interruptions from his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), because it would be a great pity if, through any accident, the only Scottish Member who seeks to take part in this debate, namely, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor), were precluded from doing so?

Mr. Hamilton: On a point of order. That is an aspersion on Scottish Members, including myself, who are anxious to take part in this debate but who, because of the abusive speeches made from the Opposition side, have been unable to do so.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): The quickest way of allowing Scottish Members to speak is for the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) not to intervene.

Mr. Barnes: I am anxious to pursue this line of argument, namely, the way in which applications are dealt with by local authorities. I have already quoted one example. I have had several examples brought to my attention of another thoughtless action. This is where people who go to make an inquiry about a housing application, not to the main office, but probably to the local sub-office, are told, "Your best way of getting a home is either to emigrate or to have six children". This is the sort of thing that is sometimes said. It can be said thoughtlessly, but it is bad public relations. If this country needs anything, especially in regard to the whole matter of housing, it needs better public relations by local authorities and a greater respect for the members of the public with whom they deal.
I emphasise the fact that people dealing with local authorities set much store by what officialdom says to them. Let me again cite the case of the family I described earlier who are living in the basement flat—the mother's flat. This family had been on the housing list for a number of years. I am going back two or three years now. In desperation they decided to move away from London altogether. The husband thought about which parts of the country would be most suitaible for him to obtain similar employment. He decided to move to the Isle of Wight with his family.
The family were on the Isle of Wight for 6 or 9 months. This was not a satisfactory solution for the family by any means, because they found that the husband was unable to command a job at a rate of pay anything like that which he needed in order to support his family in the way they had been accustomed to being supported while they had been


living in London. Therefore, the family decided to return to London, not to the same house, but to the same London borough in which they had lived before.
The family contacted the local authority again. They were assured by the individual to whom they spoke at the local office of the housing department that they could take up on the housing list at the point at which they had left off, that their position would not be changed. The husband went back to his family and told his wife of this. Hopes are raised very easily. The wife was extremely pleased that this was the case. But it transpired that this was not the case, that the family had lost the place they originally had on the housing list before they moved to the Isle of Wight and, as a result, they had been put back a considerable amount of time.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: This is a case very suitable for the ombudsman that we were promised in the Labour manifesto.

Mr. Barnes: May I return to the point, because I believe—

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Barnes: I am sorry, I did not hear the question.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I said that this was a case where the ombudsman could be useful.

Mr. Barnes: I agree with the hon. Gentleman; this is absolutely so. This is the type of case one would want an ombudsman to look into. I will go on with this theme, because it is an important subject and I should like to see it through.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Would the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Barnes: No. The clock is against me.

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Barnes: I am sorry, but I must drive home this point about local authorities. I should have thought that hon. Members opposite would have felt that the way that local authorities handled matters of this kind is of great importance.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): If the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor does not give way, the hon. Gentleman must sit down.

Mr. Barnes: The individual in the office of the housing department told this gentleman that he was extremely perturbed about this matter and telephoned the head office of the local authority. Again he returned to the individual concerned and reiterated that the local authority's director of housing was very perturbed about this situation, but that because he had gone to the Isle of Wight with his family they had lost their place on the housing list. This gentleman returned to his family and told his wife, "The council is very perturbed. I was standing there while the clerk at the local office rang up the head office and spoke to the housing director, and he said that the council is very perturbed."
I urge the Minister of Housing and Local Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"]—to try to bring home to local authorities throughout the country, and especially to housing departments, that individuals set a great deal of store by remarks that are made when they have dealings with local authorities. Many right hon. and hon. Members would probably agree, especially those who have had any administrative experience, that in a case like this it is much better to write a letter, because when one writes a letter, whether to a housing department or to an organisation of any kind, that is a piece of paper which lands on somebody's desk. It niggles them; it worries them. They try to put it in their in or out tray, but if they have a conscience at all this bit of paper on their desk worries them. But if you talk to them on the telephone, or go in and have a conversation with them, there is no record of the exchange between you as there is when a letter is written. That is why it is so exasperating and heartbreaking that there are many people all over the country going to see housing departments, being interviewed, ringing them up, and setting far too much store on what they are told.
Therefore, I should like the Minister to be aware of this problem. I realise that we were talking about the problems in London, with the reorganisation of local government throughout London.


There are the problems of the bulging housing lists in London. Many people cannot get on the lists, and there are these problems in many constituencies. I ask the Minister to encourage local authorities to use a more efficient way of dealing with housing applications, and to improve their public relations.

Mr. O'Malley: Would my hon. Friend say what his opinions are on the rôle of an ombudsman in local affairs and local government, with particular reference to the kind of case that he has quoted?

Mr. Barnes: That is a very interesting point, but I am most anxious, because time is very short, not to be distracted from the two central points that I have been trying to make throughout this speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are they?"] The two points that I have endeavoured to make and which I had hoped I had made clear are, firstly, the importance of giving a greater priority to local authority building of houses to rent, rather than owner-occupied houses, which is what we have had in the past. The second point is, for hon. Members who missed it or who have just come into the Chamber, the need for better and more efficient handling of housing applications by local authorities.
Time is drawing very short, and therefore I should like to summarise what I have been trying to say. The real subject that we have been debating is not the figures and statistics that have been bandied about. It is the homes that are desperately needed to create the conditions which alone make happiness possible for thousands of people throughout the country. People want these conditions while they are young and while their children are young. This is why I would back the Government to the hilt to meet the target of half a million houses a year by 1970. Poised as we are on this big breakthrough in housing, I can only say that it is churlish of the Opposition to table their Motion.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) spoke for ten minutes to enable the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) to say all he had to say in 20 minutes. I would not, however, like the

House to lose the opportunity in 30 seconds to hear what has happened in Scotland.
In Scotland last year, we built 2,000 fewer houses than in 1964, and in the first quarter of this year completions were down by one-sixth on the same quarter of 1965. Housing starts in Scotland in the first quarter of the year were down from 10,000 to 6,000—

Mr. William Hamilton: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): The hon. Member who has risen must not continue to intervene when the hon. Member who has the Floor does not give way.

Mr. Taylor: The tenders for the houses to be built next year and in the future years were down by one-quarter—[Interruption.]

Mr. William Hamilton: rose—

Mr. Taylor: I would simply like—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must insist that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) does not persist in his intervention when the hon. Member who has the Floor has not given way.

Mr. Taylor: I would like to say the final word. In Scotland, as I believe in England, the Government have carried out a gigantic confidence trick by saying a great deal and by having a scandalous record, a record which is all the more scandalous bearing in mind the terrible housing problems of Scotland.

Mr. William Hamilton: rose—

9.3 p.m.

Mr. R. Chichester-Clark: I am certain that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), as I know he will, will acquit me of any malice towards Scottish Members and will realise that I am only too anxious that they should get an opportunity to take part—

Mr. William Hamilton: Give me two minutes, the same as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) got.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Member has not been here all day waiting to make a speech, as my hon. Friend has been.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will the hon. Member give way?

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Perhaps I may begin by referring, first, to some of the maiden speeches to which we have listened with great pleasure this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) made a most attractive and fluent speech, which clearly showed his grasp of the subject. I most certainly offer him my congratulations and, I am sure, those of the House.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) said in his maiden speech that he would avoid mentioning what his hon. Friends had said of the Selective Employment Tax. That was carrying uncontroversiality a long way, but the hon. Member was most successful in that. I am sure that we all congratulate him on making a fine speech. The hon. Member indirectly paid tribute to our ideas on a National House-Building Registration Council, and we were gratified by that.
I would like also to refer to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg), which was delivered with such confidence and sincerity. As he said, Richard Stanley's family have been represented in this House without a break for 44 years. With the majority which he commands, my hon. Friend will have no difficulty in emulating that record without a break. I congratulate him on a speech which was well delivered and which, in brevity, was an example to us all.
There was an excellent speech, too, from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price), on which we congratulate him sincerely. He spoke with obvious knowledge of his subject. His majority does not suggest, however, that he will have a 44-year tenure of membership.
I come next to the speech of the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). There is nothing maidenly about the right hon. Gentleman, but he showed virtue this afternoon, for not only did he ask for a degree of immunity, which, some, I am sure, would grant him—but, I fear, I cannot entirely—but he

made what, I am sure, was recognised by the House as a most courageous and, as he said, a very difficult speech. We all listened to it with very great interest. He was almost non-party in his approach. I could go even further and say that he might almost have made his speech from this side of the House.
I shall have to be critical of the right hon. Gentleman in due course, but I must commend him for the courage with which he made his speech and for the manner in which, during his tenure of office at the Ministry of Public Building and Works, he tried—and "tried" is the operative word—to stand up for the industry of which, as he said, the Ministry of Public Building and Works ought to be the leader. This is recognised in the industry, whatever other criticisms they may make.
I find myself in a great deal of agreement with much that he had to say, especially about the Selective Employment Tax and its possible effects in adding to the manpower problems of the industry. However, I would probably get into trouble, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I were to pursue that line very much further. The right hon. Gentleman doubted whether the Building Control Bill, with which he had some connection, was justified—that is, if it was to be followed by the Selective Employment Tax. I must say that I agree with him there.
The right hon. Gentleman shares with us on these benches the concern which we all feel about the manner in which this tax may give undue encouragement to the already spreading growth of labour-only. He referred to its dangers and he was, no doubt, thinking particularly of the possibility of the inefficiency of a labour-only gang being let loose on the electrical side of the industry where obviously its activities could be lethal. I am sure that that is the kind of thing he had in mind.
To come to the subject of the debate, this is a grave moment for the housing and building industries. It is a time when, so far from advancing, we are actually in retreat. So far from the new Britain being built, increasingly less of anything is being built at all. It is a time when spokesman after spokesman from the industry has complained of lack


of confidence and uncertainty as to the future. It is a moment when the Minister of Housing—who is not noted for the modesty of his claims on occasions—admits to the House and on television that the position in the private sector is far from comforting and he says that he is not at all proud of the Government's achievements. Today, he merely said that it was disappointing.
What is going wrong? Why is the new Britain not being built, and why is it only a dream in the minds of the Prime Minister's speech writers? Why this failure? The Minister expressed himself puzzled about the situation, but I thought that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) unravelled the tangled skein for him very effectively. I shall try, if I must, to do so again.
The position is this. The private building industry depends on forward planning, a regular flow of orders and the knowledge that it can proceed with a reasonable degree of certainty whether there are controls or not. This means that builders should have the prospect —this was mentioned a good deal this afternoon—of a regular flow of building land and not the prospect of the supply drying up. The Minister made comments on this which I found unconvincing this afternoon.
It means, too, that contractors should see orders for new work increasing in value as against the same period of the previous year, and not falling as in 1965 as against 1964 and as they have been doing month by month since. It means that private builders should be able to be sure of a reasonable flow of bank loans for their requirements and should not be faced with Bank of England directives drying up that supply at the same time as the Government press for more building. That is very important.
It may well be that that is the reason why the Minister mentioned this afternoon the slowing up and the delays in completions. That may well be. It also means that builders should have an idea of how many houses can be built for sale in the future, and that is without the changes of mind which the Minister's speech made apparent from time to time. We have had different committed totals

mentioned in almost every speech. I have evidence of that beside me.

Mr. Crossman: Quote it.

Mr. Chichester Clark: If the right hon. Gentleman wants me to quote it, I will do so.
First, at the Labour Party conference of 27th September, 1965, speaking of builders and ideas for housing, he told us that there should be roughly a 50–50 split. Later, in "The Housing Programme" issued in November, 1965, we find him saying that there should be a tolerance on either side. After that, there comes another quotation, when he said:
I am going to leave private enterprise completely free to build every house it can sell.
That came in a B.B.C. Home Service party political broadcast on 11th May, 1966. Now we know where we are—or do we? Do the house builders know where they are? With respect, I do not think so.
Besides which, the builders should not have to spend their time watching the public sector in the form of direct labour organisations being artificially stimulated at their expense. What is really needed—this has been said so often, notably in some powerful speeches from this side today—is a restoration of confidence in the industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for South-end, West (Mr. Channon) was very vehement and entirely right in what he said and gave many examples of this. In passing, I must point out that there were few industries which, in 1964, were more ready to co-operate with the present Government than the building and construction industries, and this was true of the building societies as well. But few have been more disillusioned.
Some strange things were said by the Minister today. He told us that the big builders were going ahead with their house building. Obviously, he has not heard about Wimpey and he has not read Taylor-Woodrow's annual report, in The Times of 18th May, which said:
The number of houses constructed and sold during the past year was considerably less than in 1964. Contributing factors to this were the credit squeeze and shortage of mortgage funds for owner-occupiers, together with uncertainty over interest rates.


I wanted the Minister to know about that.
There are other factors creating the lack of confidence. Seemingly little things can create it. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced that the National Building Agency was to be transferred to the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry, the Agency so successfully created and which operated so well under the aegis of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham. I concede that such a transfer should not necessarily cause builders to lose a great deal of sleep, but they have found it worrying. Some of the reasons—whether they were entirely accurate or not, perhaps one does not know, but I believe that they were—were set out in an article in The Times from which my right hon. and learned Friend read. The Minister made a vicious attack on The Times this afternoon, but we have had no explanation as to what is going on.
There have been strong rumours—I must say this and get a denial if it is not true—that the National Building Agency has been developing its own system of industrialised building, a move which is condemned as unethical and certainly not conforming to the purpose for which it was established. We must try to elicit a denial of that this evening. It is further suggested in the industry that the transfer from one Ministry to another took place so that the Minister could produce his own national system, with the expertise of the N.B.A., a system which would then be adopted and recommended, perhaps with the backing of loan sanctions, to local authorities.

Mr. Crossman: If the hon. Gentleman wants it, all I can tell him is that, as I said before, there is not a word of truth in any of that about myself.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: I am not imputing any motive to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Crossman: I said that there was not a word of truth in that allegation about what I have done. It is an allegation about what I did. I am saying that it is untrue. If the hon. Gentleman asks me, I deny it. I hope that he will accept my denial.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Of course, I shall accept the right hon. Gentleman's

denial, but that is not quite the point. I was asking whether the N.B.A. itself had been developing a system, possibly with co-operation, which the Minister may not have known about. I accept that he has not done it, but we are talking about the N.B.A. which has only now been transferred to his Ministry. Perhaps he now follows what I mean.
If there is to be a national system —as I say, I accept what the Minister says and give him the benefit of the doubt on the question whether this is a form of nationalisation of part of the construction industry—what guarantee is there that it will be subjected to any kind of competitive forces? It may well prove that a system is developed which will be more expensive and, possibly, difficult from the standpoint of our balance of payments because it will not have the expertise and experience of private industry which will be competing with it and which would tend to make it price-conscious and more competitive in its development.
But the industry will be even more suspicious unless it is assured that a state of affairs does not exist in which the N.B.A. will be able to use in the Ministry the knowledge which it has derived from systems submitted for appraisal by outside builders. This worries the industry very much, and we want an assurance about it tonight. I trust that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will give that assurance. We will get that assurance will we not?
I also want to speak about direct labour. The industry is not happy about the emphasis placed on local authority direct labour organisations by the Government. The Opposition are not against direct labour in certain sectors. Direct labour organisations do the most important and necessary work, particularly maintenance work. But it is ludicrous to suggest that by the abolition of the one-for-three rule last November healthy competition was provided for private builders. How can any private builder be expected to compete with the resources of the general rate fund and the taxpayers which can be found standing behind direct labour departments to bail them out if the need arises?
The argument used to justify the infamous Circular 50/65 about the importance of continuity to direct labour


work in expanding the house building programme is completely specious. Of course continuity is desirable. Every builder longs for it. That is what I said when I began my speech. But this is suggesting continuity at the expense of the independent builder. We might well see certain local authorities attempting to abandon altogether the practice of putting out work to competitive tender. This was what Mr. Kirby Laing was warning the right hon. Gentleman about in his presence at a dinner last November. I do not know how the right hon. Gentleman squares such a happening with the Banwell Committee's Report. It would be interesting to hear the argument—it would be an interesting theological argument—on some other occasion.
But all this is being done for a form of enterprise—direct labour—which is not notably productive and which is, sometimes at least, grossly and scandalously inefficient at public expense. I am at a loss to know why the right hon. Gentleman should be taking action which will draw labour from private building to direct labour departments in an industry which already has serious and growing labour shortages in various sectors. The right hon. Gentleman know that output per man employed by contractors—we have had the figure once today, but I will give it again—on new housing work for public authorities—not private enterprise—in 1964 was £2,825, while the output per man employed by local authorities was £1,990.
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman—he is too shrewd—would want to advance the argument put forward by the Manchester Direct Works Committee in its 1963–64 annual report when it tried to suggest that Ministry statistics confused productivity and output. He knows very well that that report contradicted its own argument a few pages later on. However, the fact is that the output of direct labour departments is far from satisfactory and that to increase their work artificially, which seems to be what is happening, simply means that fewer houses will be built, and in all probability they will be built less quickly. I am sure that that is a result which no one in the House wants.
Also, there are the periodic scandals which occur, such as at Cardiff and Liver-

pool, where the ratepayers are left "carrying the can" for inadequate estimating and sheer inefficiency. The case that everyone has read about is that at Salford. There is a real tribute to direct labour.
Beside me I have the Dale interim report into overspending by the Salford Direct Labour Department. It does not make good reading. I wonder whether the Minister can be happy about the abolition of this corrective check of periodic competition for a department which may prove in this case to have lost £500,000 on contracts worth less than £6 million, or where 33 out of 40 contracts were overspent—one by 38 per cent. We have seen more than enough of the general rate being poured down the drain in this way, and this comes from the people's guardian of the burden of the rates who sits opposite me tonight.
Another thing that I want to know is whether the Government plans for the future include provision for direct labour departments to pay taxes, on the same basis as private builders pay taxes. I take it that we will receive some sort of assurance on this point tonight. We will get that, will we not? The industry want to know. When the Government first announced their nexus of building controls in 1964–65—the Control of Offices and Industrial Development Act, the six months' moratorium, and the Building Control Bill with its unhappy history of retrospection and Ministerial confusion — these controls appeared to be directed against the big builders, whom the Government, in their all too finite wisdom, thought had too much work to do.
We were told that the builders were doing the wrong sort of job. A variety of reasons was put forward for the controls. One day it was the balance of payments, then it was overheating in the industry—and then, in a flash of revelation, we had the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) telling us that we were having the controls in anticipation of future crises which the Government thought likely.
It seemed that only the big builders were to be hit by these controls, but that is not what has happened. The little man is being hit harder than anybody. The 45,000 firms mentioned tonight by


my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West, who employ between one and 10 men, derive little or no benefit from investment grant schemes. They have been hit because their profit margins are already low, and they will have to pass on all the new taxes instead of absorbing them, as some of the bigger firms can.
Then there are the building material producers, especially the smaller ones. They are hit by this ludicrous brick stocks position. Bricks are now sitting around in yards and fields and car parks all round the country. The small man is affected most. He has limited transport and storage facilities. The position is very serious in some parts of the country.
I remember the right hon. Member for Leeds, West telling us, in a most engaging way, that he was the prisoner of whatever he happened to say at the time. Of course he is the prisoner of what he says. What he said at one time was, "Nothing has a greater psychological effect on a man than seeing plenty of bricks on a site". They are not all on the sites, but there are plenty of bricks—in fact, there are so many that the appetite of some building material producers may sicken, and next year we may have a shortage of production.
The brick scandal stands out on its own. It is worth a debate on its own, although I doubt whether the Government would welcome that. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Murton) said that he knew areas where the situation was particularly serious. The Government have an injured look when we mention bricks, and the right hon. Member for Leeds, West looks like a family pet whose tail has been trodden on while it is still wagging. He says, "Why are you blaming us for turning a shortage into a glut?" We are not blaming the Government for that; what we are blaming them for is for turning a year of record production and expansion—1964—into a year of gloom and cut-backs in production, and now into a year of crisis, which is continuing and deepening.
It is remarkable that we got the housing totals for March today, but we have not yet had the brick totals. Perhaps we shall get them later on tonight. Heaven knows, they will be bad enough, but April may

well be the cruellest month. It may well be worse, but I hope not.
"We shall plan the bricks", said the Prime Minister. We warned the Government in November, 1964, just how expensive a bit of false planning would be. That is what has happened. I shall be surprised if we hear more about the weather in 1962–63 as compared with last year. There is no comparison. We have heard from the Minister that the glut in 1963 was as bad as this year. It is a false comparison. Anyone who compares the weather of 1962–63 with last winter should really go to see his meteorologist.
The position is simple. The Government's house-building programme has run into serious trouble. One should have expected it, because there was the same flop after the war, resulting in the same dismal failure. We have stated what has gone wrong and what will still go wrong as long as the Government indulge in futile irrelevancies like the Land Commission and the Building Control Bill and allow the economy to stagger along from one Budget to another every few months, each more austere than the last.
It is fitting that the Minister of Housing and Local Government should be the field commander for the "supremo's" war operation on housing. Some time ago, the House was reminded of a famous dictum delivered to the Royal United Services Institution. It was:
If the art of propaganda is to conceal that you are doing propaganda, then the essential substance of propaganda is that, if you give a man correct information for seven years, he may believe the incorrect information on the first day of the eighth year, when it is necessary from your point of view that he should do so.
The speaker was the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
But the right hon. Gentleman will not get eight years—there is no doubt of that—and I hope that he will not find the first part of his dictum about giving correct information beyond his powers. I wonder whether he has not altered his dicta to suggest that, if one tells the people often enough that more houses will be produced, the rates will be reduced and mortgages will come down, they will not believe the hard correct facts, which are that fewer houses are being built, rates are rising astronomically and mortgages are historically high and getting higher—just as, in the same way,


the people may be made to believe that in February the Winter Emergency Committee is warming their rooms and that the Commonwealth Peace Mission and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance have ended the war in Vietnam. This is the same approach.
The Government have delivered a serious setback to the construction industry. They have used it as an economic regulator, which they said they would not do. They have checked its expansion and damaged its confidence, making it virtually impossible for it to achieve its tasks. We see falling orders for new construction and limping productivity—a very tarnished tribute to purposive planning and gritty action. We see the anxiety of many builders about the position of their long-term fixed price contracts because of their fears that the taxation ideas of the Government may have grave repercussions. We shall have an assurance about that, of course, tonight, will we not?
There is a slump in building for sale, together with record mortgage rates, damaging and irrelevant controls and the hare-brained Land Commission scheme, which will mean less building land and dearer housing prices. By the present methods, the Government will not achieve their objectives. As my hon. and learned Friend said, the Government are combining doctrinal fallacy with administrative incompetence and if, as it seems, they want change in the industry, they can bring it about by a different method—through confidence and co-operation. It is for their incompetence to do this that we condemn them in the Lobby tonight.

9.30 p.m.

The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Reginald Prentice): The first task that I would like to perform is to join those who have congratulated the four maiden speakers who have addressed the House during this debate. I heard some of all four and nearly all of each, and I think that the House would like to congratulate my hon. Friends the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Christopher Price), Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) and the hon. Members for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) and Paddington, South (Mr. Scott) on the speeches which they made. All were relatively non-controversial, but were not too

inhibited by tradition in that respect. All showed an intimate knowledge of the housing conditions in their own constituencies, and we all look forward to hearing from them again.
I also want to refer to what he described as being in some ways a maiden speech—namely, the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). This was an excellent speech, of great courage and humour and it showed that the House has regained a very distinguished back bencher. It is no empty tribute to say that we all look forward very much to hearing further speeches from my right hon. Friend. He said that he was not going to speak on this subject but, as far as I am concerned, he is very welcome to do so at any time. Whatever subjects he chooses we shall look forward to hearing from him frequently.
This has been a curious debate, during which there has been a kind of divorce between the Opposition Front Bench and the rest of the Opposition. The speech in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) opened the debate, and the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark), have been polemical speeches; they appear to have been rehearsing for an election campaign without realising that they have fought the campaign and lost it.
So far as the rest of the benches opposite are concerned, they were nearly empty at the beginning of the debate and they are not very full at the moment. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about your benches?"] Perhaps there are not many on this side, but it is the Opposition's censure debate. It has been curiously unlike a censure debate, except for the rather artificial polemics of the opening and closing speeches and the short speech of the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), who joined in the polemical spirit. On the whole, I am in sympathy with those who did not make this a polemical occasion.
There ought to be a party debate and, where necessary, a party clash about housing. No one could complain at that, but I think that the right way to approach this at the beginning of a long Parliament is to look at it constructively. If we are to argue about these things


we should argue constructively rather than score party points. This is a subject which we shall all approach with a certain amount of humility. Governments and local authorities of all parties and the industry have collectively failed to solve the housing problem of the nation.
This is essentially a human problem, and here I welcome the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes), who drew attention to cases in his constituency. Every Member and every councillor, certainly a councillor in any of the great conurbations of the country, has housing cases every week at his advice bureau and in his mail which reflect the kind of cases to which my hon. Friend referred. Ever since I became a member of Croydon Council in 1949, and during my years as a Member of Parliament, I have had cases of this kind every week. We need nearly four million homes, and we need them now if we are to give a decent home to every family needing one. It is a problem which is getting more difficult. There is an extra demand of 180,000 homes a year, and we need that number just to stay in the same place before we begin to make progress. Therefore, while we can argue and bandy statistics in order to make party points, this is the kind of occasion when we should address ourselves constructively to the problem and remember that in the final analysis these houses are not going to be built by politicians of either party. They will be built by building trade workers—using "workers" in the widest sense in which my right hon. Friend used it. It is the duty of Government and Parliament to help provide the conditions in which this can go forward in the most constructive way.
The Motion refers to housing and building policies. Naturally, the opening speeches were concerned almost entirely with housing. The speech of the hon. Member for Londonderry and, to some extent, my speech will be on building generally because this is the field of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, though clearly housing is involved. Indeed, about 40 per cent. of new construction in the construction industries is housing. Clearly, the two things are linked. But the division of labour in this debate reflects the division of responsibili-

ties between my right hon. Friend and myself.
Reference has been made by more than one hon. Member to the transfer of some functions from my Ministry to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government which was announced by the Prime Minister two days ago. It is completely logical that there should be within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government those functions which particularly relate to housing as such. There should be within the Ministry of Public Building and Works, and there is, responsibility for the Government's relations with the building industry, with the civil engineering industry, with the building material producers and with the professions related to these industries. I may be pardoned for reminding the House that we are retaining in my Ministry the sponsoring roôle for these people.
The hon. Member for Londonderry referred, in particular, to the National Building Agency. It is especially logical that the work of that Agency, intimately concerned as it is with the development of system building, should be related to the Ministry which has responsibility for the housing drive. I think that this is a logical transfer, and it is one which I completely support.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: If that is the case, why did the Minister of Housing and Local Government, in debate in the House not long ago, say that he was embarrassed by a question about the National Building Agency because it was in dispute between himself and the Minister of Public Building and Works?

Mr. Prentice: If I can speak for my right hon. Friend, "in dispute" meant that the future of it was still being discussed. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite must not judge the relationships between us on these benches by the kind of relationships which exist on the benches opposite. Our relationships are very friendly, harmonious and co-operative.
I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman referred to the quite unjustified attack against the Agency which appeared, I believe, in two publications suggesting that it was developing its own system of industrialised building and, moreover, that it might use its position as a body issuing certificates of appraisal


on systems to indulge in unfair competition. This is completely incorrect. There is no foundation for it whatever, and it is unfair to the people concerned.
I believe that the rumour arises from the fact that some experimental work has been going on, on a modest scale, between the Agency and the Research and Development Group of my Ministry into component development. This is looking ahead to the future technological developments which are likely to take place and which we hope will take place, and is part of research. It is in no sense the preparation of a separate industrialised building system. On 27th April, when I took the chair at the National Consultative Council for the first time, this question was asked and I gave a complete assurance on the subject which was accepted by the leaders of the industry.
I have referred to the roôle which remains with the Ministry of Public Building and Works. I want to draw attention to something which was true of the Ministry when the right hon. Gentleman was Minister and which is still true since. The Ministry contains within itself, on the one hand, a Research and Development Group of great distinction which has earned the respect of people in the building and civil engineering industries, and, on the other hand, a very considerable building programme of its own. Its research and building operations can be married together, so that we can practise what we preach and can convey the lessons of our own experience to the industry. I should like, if I may say so in parenthesis, to have the building activities of the Ministry rather better known. I do not think we get the credit which we deserve for some of our achievements. Our achievements in the recent past have been very varied in their nature—from the constructive job done in providing buildings for the Forces in Sarawak, to the architecture and planning of the new Post Office Tower, and a great variety of building work in between.
I think that, taking the roôle as the sponsoring Ministry of the industry, I should like to deal with at least three of the main criticisms raised of the Government in this debate. First of all, the criticisms which can be roughly bunched together under the heading, lack of confi-

dence. It has become something of a cliché to say that there is a lack of confidence in the building industry. I think that there is, in a sense, a lack of confidence, and I want to explain what I mean by that, but before I do so I think we have to make a very sharp distinction indeed between a real lack of confidence for real reasons, and the polemical suggestions of hon. Members opposite, who have talked, in this debate as they did in the election, of almost every item of labour policy which they disagreed with, such as our land policy, our leasehold reform policy, our mortgage policy, and tried to suggest that there is a great lack of confidence in the building industry because of those. In so far as there is any truth in this, in so far as these matters have raised doubts in the minds of the builders, hon. Members opposite themselves have a considerable responsibility, because there is no reason why any development of those policies need have affected the production or development of the building industry.
What the leaders of the industry I have met in the last few weeks have said to me, with some justice, I think, is this, "Our industry is particularly vulnerable to stop-go policies of any Government." Therefore, when there is an economic situation such as the danger to the £ last year, and when there are restrictive measures such as the Chancellor had to take in July last year, they say, "Our industry is liable to take a bigger share of the sacrifice than others, and, what is more, we go suffering from that months and even years later, when the economic situation may well have changed and when, indeed, restrictions put on us at an earlier date prevent us from achieving the full measure of growth which is now needed by the economy."
This is something which Governments have to consider very carefully, but I say that with three provisos. The first proviso is that these troubles did not start with the election of the Labour Government. In so far as the building industry has had brakes put upon it, this happened under Conservative Governments on a large number of occasions. Secondly, I think it is fair for us to say that to some extent the industry cannot be expected to contract out of the economic situation. No one can contract out from that. When there is a crisis, when there is a run on


the £, everyone must expect to pay the price of that.
Perhaps the building industry, by its nature, is in a particularly vulnerable position from which no one can rescue it. It is one of the facts of its situation. I would make the point that if the industry suffers in this way, that must not be used by the industry as an alibi for its own failures, and there are failures in the building industry as many in it admit themselves.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of items of criticism and said they were purely figments of the politicians' imagination. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that his right hon. Friend has received no representations from the building industry—on his advisory committee—about interest rates being raised and that these were interfering with the industry's efficiency?

Mr. Prentice: Of course there are representations from the industry on all these occasions. What I was saying was that there is a real difficulty in the nature of the industry, a difficulty which certainly was not solved by hon. Members opposite when they were in power. [HON. MEMBERS: "We built the houses."] If we are to come back to bandying figures about, I would remind hon. Members that they built far fewer houses than we have built. I thought that hon. Members opposite had been severely squashed on that argument, but if they do not want to debate building seriously, then we can come back to the figures. Perhaps the hon. Members who are now intervening have not been in the debate most of the time. Although I gave way to the hon. Member I do not wish to give way again because of the time factor.
I accept, particularly as Minister with responsibility for the industry, that the Government have a duty to try to do everything possible to ensure continuity for this industry. They have a duty to try to ensure conditions in which there can be a steady expansion of production, without the stops and starts which have occurred in the past under Governments of all kinds. This does not mean that the Government must always agree with what the industry tell them, but it means that the Government must have re-

gard to the industry's legitimate interests, and this is particularly so of the Ministry of Public Building and Works.
May I make two brief references to other matters which have been raised in the debate before I turn to the positive work of my own Ministry? The first concerns the vexed question of bricks. I was asked for the April figure. The provisional figure for the end of April shows a stock of 885 million bricks, which is almost exactly the same as the figure for the end of March. May I say straight away that I accept that it is much too large a stock. I have had discussions with the leaders of the industry about it and I realise that they have a great deal of capital tied up in a way which is very serious for them. But I do not accept that it is fair for hon. Members opposite to put the blame, as they have tried to do, on my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West. He urged a higher production, but so did the Conservative Government when they were in power.
If we are to try to exchange party points on this subject, the essential fact to remember is that it is 18 months or more from the time when a brick kiln is started to the time when production is flowing from it. Most of the industry's capacity which is now leading to these high stocks was, therefore, commissioned in 1964 or earlier—and commissioned by the industry taking a hardheaded view of the prospects as they saw them and not because they were exhorted to take this decision by Ministers of the previous Government or by my right hon. Friend.
I believe that previous Ministers, Including my right hon. Friend, and the leaders of the industry were correct to plan that expansion in the light of the information which they had at the time. What they could not have foreseen in 1964 or early 1965 was the effect of the deferment measures in July or other measures of restriction taken by the Government—measures which had to be taken by the Government in view of the very serious economic situation. This is, therefore, part of the price which the country has had to pay for that economic situation, and I shall be happy at any time to debate with hon. Members opposite the question of which side of the House is more responsible for creating it.
May I comment on the Selective Employment Tax. I am well aware of the views of the industry on this tax. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) fairly said, in choosing any new tax a Chancellor of the Exchequer is bound to create difficult problems for those who have to pay it. But I ask simply that the House and the building industry should see this in perspective and should recognise three things on the other side of the balance sheet. The first is that the industry will benefit from the removal of the import surcharge in the autumn, with its effect on timber prices. The second is that the industry will benefit because of the rebate paid to manufacturers of building materials, and indeed the rebate paid to industrialised builders whose components are produced from these materials. The third and most important point is that the industry will benefit from the investment grant scheme. Taking all that together, these will be powerful incentives, though perhaps harsh incentives, towards a redeployment of manpower which is badly needed in the industry—not towards a reduction in manpower but towards the more efficient use of it and greater investment in machinery.
Although people will say that the investment grants are not as much as the cost of the tax, it should be remembered that, as the amount of machinery increases in the industry, the value of the investment grants will increase. Under the terms of the National Plan, investment in machinery, on figures agreed with the industry, will nearly double between 1964 and 1970 and there will be extra incentives for that.
Although I would like to have spent much more time on this aspect, one gets carried away when answering a great number of points raised during a debate, so I turn to what I consider to be the most important thing to which we can give our attention now. [Interruption.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite are not interested in solving the housing problem, they should say so. We should be looking forward to the needs of this industry in the remaining years of this decade and in the 'seventies. We should take a look at the measures which are needed to increase its productivity, efficiency and output.
I pay tribute to the work that has been done since June of last year under the umbrella of the two Economic Development Committees, one for the building industry and one for the civil engineering industry— "Little Neddies" as they are called—which are beginning to tackle a number of problems collectively in the industry, perhaps some years after they should have been tackled. These committees have a joint chairman, Lord Campbell, and a joint Vice-Chairman, Mr. Bishop. These men, of great distinction and knowledge, are getting down to the tasks ahead of them and are working in close co-operation with the research and development group in my Ministry, to which I have already referred.
I remind the House of some of the big tasks that must be tackled in this way. The most important problems of all—and I agree here with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West—are those concerning manpower. It is in the proper deployment of manpower and the proper treatment of the workers in all respects that the future health of this industry depends most of all. A great deal of work is being done in co-operation with the Ministry of Labour and my Ministry on these matters.
The Construction Industry Training Board is now getting into its stride, and in the year 1965–66, for the first time, the training levies were charged to firms in the industry. Some of them did not like it, but the progressive, forward-looking firms have accepted the fact that for far too long they have been training craftsmen who have been poached away from them by firms which were not doing their share. There must be a great improvement in the quality and quantity of training that is done in the industry, and this applies to industry generally.
Management training is particularly important and, within the Ministry of Public Building and Works, the directorate of building management is promoting a great many ideas, is giving advice and is helping to develop courses in technical colleges and elsewhere. An aspect of management training which is not usually mentioned is the advice which we are giving to clients of the building industry


on the management decisions that they must make. We too often hear about the failure of builders to satisfy their clients. We should hear more about the failure of clients, by their decisions or indecisions, to afford guidance to those who are building for them. To do a little sales talk in this direction, a handbook, entitled "Preparing to Build", is available and I recommend that it be studied by those who must make important building decisions.
Another very important subject is the promotion of industrialised building. I will not dwell on this issue. My right hon. Friend made some important references to it and I will merely add that in the direct building programmes which are being carried out by the Ministry of Public Building and Works, we are doing a great deal of system building, using contractors. This is being done in, for example, housing for the forces at Catterick, Aldershot, Gosport and elsewhere, and in programmes for Post Offices, training centres and many other public buildings.
It is important that the industry makes fast progress in its methods of winter building. The interruption of building by bad weather is another aspect which causes a break in production and my Ministry is doing a great deal of work on this by providing lectures, articles, and broadcasts, and giving advice to builders, and publications on the subject.
Another very important point is the development of standardisation of dimensions and of components. Those who understand the industry well would say that we have suffered in the past from too great a uniformity in the appearance of the finished building combined with all kinds of meaningless variations which add to costs and make building more difficult. Therefore, the kind of standardisation of dimensions and components which will enable building to be more efficient and to progress faster, and which will at the same time give a real chance to the architect, is the kind of progress we must make. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr about the relation of this to the process of going metric. On the point he raised about modules in the system building, I am afraid these were decided some time before the decision to go metric was made.
Another very important point relates to the testing of new materials. My right hon. Friend established the new d'Agrement Board which will be of great importance in certifying and testing the reliability and quality of new materials in the industry. By collaboration with the Internationale Union d'Agrement it will be possible to find new scope for exports.
Another very important question is that of building maintenance, which has not been raised very much in the debate. Something over £1,000 million a year is being spent on maintenance costs in building. This absorbs a very great proportion of the skilled labour in the industry. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has become chairman of a committee which is studying this and also studying the promotion of more efficient systems of maintenance. Another very important point is the improving of contract procedures in order to avoid delay and confusion. Here we have the advice of Sir Harold Banwell's Committee.
I could go on with a dozen of these points, but one more which I should like to make concerns a new announcement. We are concerned with the development of computers in the building industry. They are already being used by some firms in connection with research, design and management problems. This is something we want to encourage, and I shall appoint a Committee under Mr. R. T. Walters Deputy Director-General of Research and Development in the Ministry, to study the present position and advise on the promotion of further advance. I will close on this

Mr. Rippon: Answer some of the questions.

Mr. Prentice: I am answering the questions. I want to say something about the future of the industry, which is far more than the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham did in a much longer speech. If he wants to play this in a controversial way, all right. This, after all, was supposed to be a censure debate, although it has rather flopped from that point of view on the benches opposite.
Every one of the progressive, the forward-looking steps to which I have referred in the last 10 minutes has either been started under the Labour Government or was started in the last couple of


years in the death-bed repentance period of hon. Members opposite. Most other industrial countries started them years earlier. If they had been started years earlier in this country the industry would have been enabled to make a much bigger and faster contribution to our housing needs and the other needs of our people. Therefore, it is an impertinence for hon. and right hon. Members opposite to put

down this so-called censure Motion tonight. It will be received with contempt by those who understand the building industry outside, and the rejection of it by this House will be applauded by the majority of public opinion.

Question put: —

The House divided: Ayes 230, Noes 327.

Division No. 13.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Farr, John
Loveys, W. H.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
McAdden, Sir Stephen


Astor, John
Fortescue, Tim
MacArthur, Ian


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Foster, Sir John
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy


Awdry, Daniel
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain


Baker, W. H. K.
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
McMaster, Stanley


Balniel, Lord
Gibson-Watt, David
Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan
Maddan, Martin


Batsford, Brian
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Maginnis, John E.


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Glover, Sir Douglas
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest


Bell, Ronald
Glyn, Sir Richard
Marten, Neil


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Mathew, Robert


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Goodhart, Philip
Maude, Angus


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Goodhew, Victor
Mawby, Ray


Biffen, John
Gower, Raymond
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.


Biggs-Davison, John
Grant, Anthony
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Gresham Cooke, R.
Mills, Peter (Torrington)


Black, Sir Cyril
Grieve, Percy
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)


Blaker, Peter
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Miscampbell, Norman


Body, R.
Gurden, Harold
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Bossom, Sir Clive
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Monro, Hector


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
More, Jasper


Braine, Bernard
Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)
Morgan, W. G. (Denbigh)


Brewis, John
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


Bromley-Davenport, Lt. Col. Sir Walter
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Murton, Oscar


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Nabarro, Sir Gerald


Bryan, Paul
Hawkins, Paul
Neave, Airey


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;M)
Hay, John
Nicholls, Sir Harmer


Bullus, Sir Eric
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Burden, F. A.
Heseltine, Michael
Nott, John


Campbell, Gordon
Higgins, Terence L.
Onslow, Cranley


Carlisle, Mark
Hiley, Joseph
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Hill, J. E. B.
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian


Cary, Sir Robert
Hirst, Geoffrey
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Channon, H. P. G.
Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)


Clark, Henry
Holland, Philip
Peel, John


Clegg, Walter
Hordern, Peter
Percival, Ian


Cooke, Robert
Hornby, Richard
Peyton, John


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Howell, David (Guildford)
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Cordle, John
Hunt, John
Pink, R. Bonner


Corfield, F. V.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pounder, Rafton


Costain, A. P.
Iremonger, T. L.
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Crawley, Aidan
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Prior, J. M. L.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Crouch, David
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Crowder, F. P.
Jopling, Michael
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. Sir Peter


Cunningham, Sir Knox
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Dance, James
Kerby, Capt. Henry
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Kershaw, Anthony
Ridsdale, Julian


Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Kimball, Marcus
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Robson Brown, Sir William


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Kitson, Timothy
Roots, William


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Doughty, Charles
Lambton, Viscount
Royle, Anthony


Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Russell, Sir Ronald


Drayson, G. B.
Langford-Holt, Sir John
St. John-Stevas, Norman


du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.


Eden, Sir John
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Scott, Nicholas


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Sharples, Richard


Errington, Sir Eric
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Eyre, Reginald
Longden, Gilbert
Sinclair, Sir George




Smith, John
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Stainton, Keith
Tilney, John
Whitelaw, William


Stodart, Anthony
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)
van Straubenzee, W. R.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Summers, Sir Spencer
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Talbot, John E.
Vickers, Dame Joan
Woodnutt, Mark


Tapsell, Peter
Walker, Peter (Worcester)
Worsley, Marcus


Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Younger, Hn. George


Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)
Walters, Denis



Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Ward, Dame Irene
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Teeling, Sir William
Weatherill, Bernard
Mr. Pym and Mr. R. W. Elliott


Temple, John M.
Webster, David





NOES


Abse, Leo
Dempsey, James
Howie, W.


Albu, Austen
Dewar, D. C.
Hoy, James


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Alldritt, Walter
Dickens, James
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)


Alien, Scholefield
Dobson, Ray
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Anderson, Donald
Doig, Peter
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Archer, Peter
Donnelly, Desmond
Hunter, Adam


Armstrong, Ernest
Dunn, James A.
Hynd, John


Ashley, Jack
Dunnett, Jack
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Eadie, Alex
Janner, Sir Barnett


Bagier, Gordan A. T.
Edelman, Maurice
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Barnes, Michael
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n &amp; St. P'cras, S)


Barnett, Joel
Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Baxter, William
Ellis, John
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)


Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.
English, Michael
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)


Bence, Cyril
Ennals, David
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Ensor, David
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W. Ham, S.)


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)


Bessell, Peter
Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Judd, Frank


Bidwell, Sydney
Faulds, Andrew
Kelley, Richard


Binns, John
Fernyhough, E.
Kenyon, Clifford


Bishop, E. S.
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)


Blackburn, F.
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)


Boardman, H.
Floud, Bernard
Leadbitter, Ted


Booth, Albert
Foley, Maurice
Ledger, Ron


Boston, Terence
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswch)
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Bowden, Rt. Hn. Herbert
Ford, Ben
Lee, John (Reading)


Boyden, James
Forrester, John
Lestor, Miss Joan


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Fowler, Gerry
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Fraser, John (Norwood)



Brooks, Edwin
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Galpern, Sir Myer
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Gardner, A. J.
Lipton, Marcus


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Garrett, W. E.
Lomas, Kenneth


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Garrow, Alex
Loughlin, Charles


Buchan, Norman
Ginsburg, David
Luard, Evan



Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn, P. C.
Lubbock, Eric


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Gourlay, Harry
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Gray, Dr. Hugh
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony
McBride, Neil


Cant, R. B.
Gregory, Arnold
McCann, John


Carmichael, Neil
Grey, Charles
MacColl, James


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
MacDermot, Niall


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Macdonald, A. H.


Chapman, Donald
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
McGuire, Michael


Coe, Denis
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
McKay, Mrs. Margaret


Coleman, Donald
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)


Concannon, J. D.
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mackie, John


Conlan, Bernard
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Mackintosh, John P.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Hamling, William
Maclennan, Robert


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hannan, William
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)


Crawshaw, Richard
Harper, Joseph
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)


Cronin, John
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
McNamara, Kevin


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Hart, Mrs. Judith
MacPherson, Malcolm


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Haseldine, Norman
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)


Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Hattersley, Roy
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)


Dalyell, Tam
Hazell, Bert
Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Manuel, Archie


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Heffer, Eric S.
Mapp, Charles


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Henig, Stanley
Marquand, David


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)
Mason, Roy


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Maxwell, Robert


Davies, Robert (Cambridge)
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Mayhew, Christopher


Delargy, Hugh
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Mellish, Robert


Dell, Edmund
Howell, David (Guildford)
Mendelson, J. J.







Mikardo, Ian
Price, Thomas (Weathoughton)
Swain, Thomas


Millan, Bruce
Price, William (Rugby)
Symonds, J. B.


Miller, Dr. M. S.
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Taverne, Dick


Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Rankin, John
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Moonman, Eric
Redhead, Edward
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Rees, Merlyn
Thorpe, Jeremy


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Reynolds, G. W.
Tinn, James


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Tomney, Frank


Morris, John (Aberavon)
Richard, Ivor
Urwin, T. W.


Moyle, Roland
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Varley, Eric G.


Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Murray, Albert
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Newens, Stan
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)
Wadace, George


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Norwood, Christopher
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Oakes, Gordon
Roebuck, Roy
Weitzman, David


Ogden, Eric
Rogers, George
Wellbeloved, James


O' Maliey, Brian
Rose, Paul
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Oram, Albert E.
Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Whitaker, Ben


Orbach, Maurice
Rowlands, Christopher (Meriden)
White, Mrs. Eirene


Orme, Stanley
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)
Wigg, Rt. Hn. George


Oswald, Thomas
Ryan, John
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Sheldon, Robert
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Paget, R. T.
Shore, Peter (Stepney)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Palmer, Arthur
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)


Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Short, Mrs. Ren—e (W'hampton, N. E.)
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Pardoe, J.
Silkin, John (Deptford)
Winnick, David


Park, Trevor
Silkin, S. C. (Dulwich)
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Parker, John (Dagenham)
Silverman, Juius (Aston)
Winterbottom, R. E.


Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Skeffington, Arthur
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Pavitt, Launtnce
Slater, Joseph
Woof, Robert


Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Small, William
Wyatt, Woodrow


Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Snow, Julian
Yates, Victor


Pentland, Norman
Spriggs, Leslie
Zilliacus, K.


Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)



Perry, Georgu H. (Nottingham, S.)
Stonehouse, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Mr. Law on and Mr. Whitlock.


Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Transport Finances Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

Orders of the Day — TRANSPORT FINANCES BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [18th May], That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Which Amendment was, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which seeks to make provision for

using £366 million of the taxpayers' money for the purpose of meeting the deficits of the British Railways Board and the London Transport Board for the period ending on 31st December, 1968, when the Government have failed to provide the House with details of their future transport policy, have failed to take the necessary action to reduce the deficits of the two Boards and are now seeking to make grants of a size which indicates that they anticipate further increases in the deficits of the two Boards".

Question again proposed, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question.

Debate resumed—

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 313; Noes 210.

Division No. 14.]
AYES
[10.13 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Barnett, Joel
Boyden, James


Albu, Austen
Bence, Cyril
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Bray, Dr. Jeremy


Alldritt, Walter
Bessell, Peter
Brooks, Edwin


Allen, Scholefield
Bidwell, Sydney
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.


Anderson, Donald
Binns, John
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)


Archer, Peter
Bishop, E. S.
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W)


Armstrong, Ernest
Blackburn, F.
Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)


Ashley, Jack
Blenkinsop, Arthur
Buchan, Norman


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Boardman, H.
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Booth, Albert
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Boston, Terence
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Cant, R. B.


Barnes, Michael
Bowden, Rt. Hn. Herbert
Carmichael, Neil




Carter-Jones, Lewis
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Oakes, Gordon


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Ogden, Eric


Chapman, Donald
Howie, W.
O'Malley, Brian


Coe, Denis
Hoy, James
Oram, Albert E.


Coleman, Donald
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Orbach, Maurice


Concannon, J. D.
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)
Orme, Stanley


Conlan, Bernard
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Oswald, Thomas


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hunter, Adam
Owen, Will (Morpeth)


Crawshaw, Richard
Hynd, John
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Cronin, John
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Paget, R. T.


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Palmer, Arthur


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Janner, Sir Barnett
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Dalyell, Tam
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Pardoe, J.


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n &amp; St. P'cras, S.)
Park, Trevor


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stratford)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Pavitt, Laurence


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Davies, Robert (Cambridge)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Pentland, Norman


Delargy, Hugh
Judd, Frank
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Dell, Edmund
Kenyon, Clifford
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Dewar, Donald
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Dickens, James
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)


Dobson, Ray
Lawson, George
Price, William (Rugby)


Doig, Peter
Leadbitter, Ted
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry


Donnelly, Desmond
Ledger, Ron
Rankin, John


Dunn, James A.
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Redhead, Edward


Dunnett, Jack
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Rees, Merlyn


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Lee, John (Reading)
Reynolds, G. W.


Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Lestor, Miss Joan
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Eadie, Alex
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Richard, Ivor


Edelman, Maurice
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)


Ellis, John
Lipton, Marcus
Robertson, John (Paisley)


English, Michael
Lomas, Kenneth
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)


Ennals, David
Loughlin, Charles
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)


Ensor, David
Luard, Evan
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Lubbock, Eric
Roebuck, Roy


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Rogers, George


Faulds, Andrew
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Rose, Paul


Fernyhough, E.
McBride, Neil
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
McCann, John
Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
MacColl, James
Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)


Floud, Bernard
MacDermot, Niall
Ryan, John


Foley, Maurice
Macdonald, A. H.
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
McGuire, Michael
Shore, Peter (Stepney)


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Ford, Ben
Mackenzie, Gregor (Ruthergien)
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)


Forrester, John
Mackie, John
Silkin, John (Deptford)


Fowler, Gerry
Mackintosh, John P.
Silkin, S. C. (Dulwich)


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Maclennan, Robert
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Skeffington, Arthur


Galpern, Sir Myer
MacPherson, Malcolm
Slater, Joseph


Gardner, A. J.
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Small, William


Garrow, Alex
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Snow, Julian


Ginsburg, David
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Spriggs, Leslie


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Manuel, Archie
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Gray, Dr. Hugh
Mapp, Charles
Stonehouse, John


Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Marquand, David
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Gregory, Arnold
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Grey, Charles
Mason, Roy
Swain, Thomas


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Maxwell, Robert
Swingler, Stephen


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Mayhew, Christopher
Symonds, J. B.


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Mellish, Robert
Taverns, Dick


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mendelson, J. J.
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Mikardo, Ian
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Millan, Bruce
Thorpe, Jeremy


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Tinn, James


Hamling, William
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Tomney, Frank


Hannan, William
Moonman, Eric
Urwin, T. W.


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Varley, Eric G.


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Haseldine, Norman
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Wainwright, Richard (Coine Valley)


Hattersley, Roy
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hazell, Bert
Moyle, Roland
Wallace, George


Heffer, Eric S.
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Watkins, David (Consett)


Henig, Stanley
Murray, Albert
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Newens, Stan
Weitzman, David


Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Wellbeloved, James


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Norwood, Christopher
Whitaker, Ben







White, Mrs Eirene
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Whitlock, William
Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)
Yates, Victor


Wigg, Rt. Hn. George
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Zilliacus, K.


Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Winnick, David



Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)
Winterbottom, R. E.
Mr. Fitch and Mr. Harper.


Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.





NOES


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Goodhart, Philip
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Goodhew, Victor
Murton, Oscar


Astor, John
Gower, Raymond
Nabarro, Sir Gerald


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Grant, Anthony
Neave, Airey


Awdry, Daniel
Gresham Cooke, R.
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Baker, W. H. K.
Grieve, Percy
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Balniel, Lord
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Nott, John


Batsford, Brian
Gurden, Harold
Onslow, Cranley


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Bell, Ronald
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)


Biffen, John
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Peel, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Percival, Ian


Birch, Rn. Hn. Nigel
Hawkins, Paul
Peyton, John


Black, Sir Cyril
Hay, John
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Blaker, Peter
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Pink, R. Bonner


Body, R.
Heseltine, Michael
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Bossom, Sir Clive
Higgins, Terence L.
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.
Hiley, Joseph
Prior, J. M. L.


Braine, Bernard
Hill, J. E. B.
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Brewis, John
Hirst, Geoffrey
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Brinton, Sir Tatton

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Bromley-Davenport, Lt. Col. Sir Walter
Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John



Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Holland, Philip
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Bryan, Paul
Hordern, Peter
Ridsdale, Julian


Bullus, Sir Eric
Hornby, Richard
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey


Burden, F. A.
Howell, David (Guildford)
Robson Brown, Sir William


Campbell, Gordon
Hunt, John
Roots, William


Carlisle, Mark
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Iremonger, T. L.
Royle, Anthony


Cary, Sir Robert
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Channon, H. P. G.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.


Chichester-Clark, R.
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Scott, Nicholas


Clegg, Walter
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Sharples, Richard


Cooke, Robert
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Smith, John


Cordle, John
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Stainton, Keith


Corfield, F. V.
Kershaw, Anthony
Stodart, Anthony


Costain, A. P.
Kimball, Marcus
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Crawley, Aidan
Kitson, Timothy
Talbot, John E.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Tapsell, Peter


Crouch, David
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Crowder, F. P.
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cunningham, Sir Knox
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Teeling, Sir William


Dance, James
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Temple, John M.


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Longden, Gilbert
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Loveys, W. H.
Tilney, John


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
MacArthur, Ian
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Doughty, Charles
McMaster, Stanley
Vickers, Dame Joan


Drayson, G. B.
Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Maddan, Martin
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Eden, Sir John
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Ward, Dame Irene


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Marten, Neil
Weatherill, Bernard


Errington, Sir Eric
Mathew, Robert
Webster, David


Eyre, Reginald
Maude, Angus
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Farr, John
Mawby, Ray
Whitelaw, William


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Fortescue, Tim
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Foster, Sir John
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Woodnutt, Mark


Gibson-Watt, David
Miscampbell, Norman
Worsley, Marcus


Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Younger, Hn. George


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Monro, Hector



Glover, Sir Douglas
More, Jasper
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Glyn, Sir Richard
Morgan, W. G. (Denbigh)
Mr. Pym and Mr. R. W. Elliott.


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Bill accordingly read a Second time.


Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Gourlay]


Committee Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — TRANSPORT FINANCES [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir ERIC FLETCHER in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision for the payment of grants to the British Railways Board and the British Waterways Board on account of deficits on revenue account down to the end of the year 1968 and to authorise the payment of such grants to the London Transport Board, it is expedient to authorise any such increase in the sums which, under the Transport Act 1962, are authorised or required to be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament, issued out of the Con-

solidated Fund, raised by borrowing, or paid into the Exchequer as may be attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session—

(a)extending by one year the period of five years referred to in sections 22 and 23 of the said Act of 1962 (grants and loans to the said Railways Board and Waterways Board to meet deficits on revenue account arising during that period);
(b)raising from £450 million to £800 million the aggregate limit imposed by the said section 22 in respect of grants or loans to meet such deficits of the British Railways Board;
(c)making corresponding provision in respect of deficits on revenue account incurred by the London Transport Board, subject to an aggregate limit of £16 million.—[Mr. J. Morris.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — WOOL MARKETING SCHEME

10.28 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): I beg to move,
That the Amendment of the British Wool Marketing Scheme 1950, as amended, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st April, be approved.
This amendment of the British Wool Marketing Scheme is needed to make good a defect in the arrangements which the Scheme provides for appeals by producers against the valuation of their wool.
I think that I should, first, explain very briefly how the marketing arrangements under the Scheme work. Practically all producers of wool are required to be registered with the British Wool Marketing Board and must sell their wool to it. The Board arranges for the wool to be assembled, graded and prepared for sale by merchants who are appointed as the Board's agents; the Board then sells the wool at public auctions. Producers are paid by the Board by grades, the price of each grade being related to the overall guaranteed price determined by the Government at the Annual Price Review. The producer hears from the Board, normally within a week after grading, the total valuation of all his wool, and is entitled to appeal, within 10 days of receiving the valuation notice, to the appeal tribunal, which has the task of considering the valuation and may direct it to be altered. These, very briefly, are the arrangements provided for at present under the Scheme.
I should now like to deal with the change that we are proposing. The defect in the Scheme as it stands is that it does not give the producer a formal right to require that his wool should be available for inspection by the appeal tribunal; this, clearly, is important, as in the absence of the wool which is the subject of an appeal, the appeal clearly has less value than it might have. The purpose of the Amendment is to remedy this defect.
There is, however, a difficulty here which follows from the conditions of operation at the Board's grading depots.

What happens is that a producer's clip is handled very rapidly by expert graders, each fleece being graded and thrown into a skep or basket for a particular grade. There are usually a number of grades in each clip, sometimes as many as 30. As the skeps are filled, they are emptied into bins or piles, where the wool becomes mixed with other producers' wool of the same grade.
This is necessary to save space and permit the bulking of the graded wool without congestion of the premises. All this means that it would be quite impracticable to try to solve the problem I have described by requiring that each producer's wool be kept separate by grades for two or three weeks until his right of appeal against his valuation has expired.
The solution we propose is that producers should be given the formal right on request to have their wool kept separate at the grading stage. This would formalise the current practice of the Wool Board, which has recognised this difficulty for some time and has been prepared to grant this as a concession to producers.
The Amendment is based on a proposal which the Board submitted to Ministers, but which has been modified in certain respects with the Board's consent as the result of a public inquiry into an objection made by a producer. The effect of the Amendment is that a producer has a right to have his wool kept separate after grading, under certain conditions. In the first place he must attend the grading in person, or through a representative, and the Board is required, if the producer so requests, to give him a reasonable opportunity to attend.
Secondly, the producer must request the grader, during or immediately after the grading process and before the wool is dispersed to bins or piles, to have the wool kept separate. This means that any producer who is not prepared to rely on the grading carried out by the Board's agent, and wants to make sure of being able to get a second expert opinion, will be entitled, as soon as the grading begins, to demand the segregation of all or part of his wool. Unless he cancels his request, the wool will then be kept separate until the time limit for


an appeal against the Board's valuation has expired—that is, until 10 days after he has received notice of the valuation, or until his appeal, if he decided to make one, has been heard.
Finally, the Amendment provides that if a producer does not take advantage of this right and subsequently appeals against the Board's valuation, the appeal tribunal may decide the value of his wool upon such evidence as it may deem proper.
This proposed arrangement seems to be fair. There have been very few appeals against valuations—the average has been less than six per year for the last ten years—but I am sure that this Amendment will bring about an improvement in the appeal arrangements. As I have said, it gives every producer a definite right to have his wool kept separate, provided he is prepared to fulfil certain quite reasonable conditions.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: If I understand it aright—and perhaps the Minister will confirm this—the producer has always been able to appeal if he gave notice within 10 days of receiving his valuation, no matter whether or not he attended the grading. I think that that has been a statutory right. What has not been statutory, but which has been practised in recent years, has been that a producer who attended the grading could ask for his wool to be kept separate pending an appeal, and this was done.
It is this which has now become statutory. It is quite obviously right that producers should be able to appeal if they think that their grading has not been done to their satisfaction. On the other hand, it is apparent that any appeal would lack much of its substance unless the wool was available, on its own, for separate inspection by the appeal panel. It is here, as the hon. Gentleman has rightly said, that one runs up against severe physical difficulties, because wool is extremely bulky stuff and there is not the space to keep it in any wool-brokers' establishment without creating a very large pile-up. If ever there was a case for a compromise this is it, and the hon. Gentleman has spelled out a pretty fair case for the compromise.
It is desirable that more people should see their clip graded because if they did it is possible that the quality of presentation might improve as a result of seeing the faults in the grading. That might serve to offset that quite disgraceful cut which the Government imposed upon sheep breeders in the recent Price Review. It might go some way to providing a solution to that. If the consequence of more attendances at the wool brokers meant more appeals, which would mean the setting aside of all these individual clips, then this could be extremely awkward, because the brokers to whom I send my wool grade 2½ million lbs. every year and 80 per cent. of that is graded during the months of July and August. Into this wool brokerage comes wool from half-bred, black-face, and Cheviot flocks, all at that time. In wool grading there are 19 grades of blackface, 17 grades of Cheviot and 23 of half-bred, making 59 in all, to be handled at any one time.
As the hon. Gentleman has said, each fleece takes only seconds to grade and even a very modest number of appeals could cause considerable havoc. It is interesting and significant that this firm of brokers has never yet been asked to put any wool aside by way of appeal. This seems to be in line with the figures given by the hon. Gentleman, that there are six appeals per annum from over 130,000 producers. One does not, therefore, need to be too gloomy about the physical difficulties that may be encountered.
As far as I can make out, the general procedure is that the first stage is that the wool leaves the farms and goes to the brokers. They send an acknowledgment to the farmer which gives the gross weight of each bale and a total net weight. The brokers grade the wool, I imagine within the next few days. This is important. They then send a sheet to the headquarters of the Wool Board, in Bradford, giving the grades and the weights in each grade and the deductions which have been made for various faults. The Board inserts on this sheet, or an identical one, the price per 1b. and the gross value of each grade and posts that to the producer, with a cheque. I notice that last year I received my acknowledgment from the brokers for the receipt of my wool on 26th July, and that my valuation and


cheque arrived on 12th August, 16 days later.
I have just one reservation. Presumably, the broker keeps a duplicate of what he sends to the Board—that is, the grades and the weights and the deductions. I wonder whether it might be to the general satisfaction if the broker were to keep a third copy and post that to the producer. I wonder whether or not that figure which the hon. Gentleman quoted of six days is really a true one, and whether the producer does get his cheque within six days of the grading being done. Perhaps he will confirm that. I have a suspicion that it could be a matter of 10 days or a fortnight. I wonder if it might not be a good plan if the producer could get his duplicate immediately of the grades, the weights and the deductions, and he could then, if he wished, look at the Schedule and work out the valuation and thus anticipate the notice which comes from the Wool Board, possibly 10 days later.
That is the only reservation I have. In general, I welcome this, and I repeat, if people can be induced to make sure of their clips being graded it may well do the industry a lot of good, in that people will tend to take more trouble about their actual presentation.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I welcome this Amendment of the Wool Marketing Scheme not only because I think it a good move, but because it will be of great benefit to many producers, particularly in the South-West—and, after all, the South-West has one of the largest sheep populations in the country. I welcome it because it is designed to improve arrangements for appeals by producers against valuations of their wool.
I believe that this is an improvement, and that it is only right and proper that we should be constantly seeking to improve our marketing schemes and methods of marketing. No marketing board must stand still. Every endeavour must be made to facilitate the marketing of wool. Producers, wool buyers, and, indeed, the Wool Board itself, must be on the alert these days, when the wool industry races great competition. I believe that this Amendment will help in

the marketing and smooth functioning of this most important industry.
It is not only an improvement, but it is a safeguard to the producer, I believe. Surely that is always necessary. Marketing boards, because of their size and strength, can, if they wish, wield the big stick. I do not believe that they usually do in practice, but it is right, surely, that every safeguard to the producer should be put into practice. It is not only a safeguard, but, of course, it is a little encouragement, too, to the sheep farmer these days. Goodness knows, he has had little encouragement lately, especially in the last two Price Reviews, when he has had 2d. a 1b. cut off his wool. This will at least help him obtain the best price he can get.
The effect of the Amendment will be that the farmer, and the tribunal hearing his appeal, and, of course, the Board, will be very careful that they leave nothing to chance and that a fair and right solution is found. I hope that producers will take advantage of these facilities, and, indeed, inspect their wool as it is graded. We do not want the wool sheds cluttered with farmers inspecting all the time, but I am certain that the fact they can watch the wool being graded will be of great benefit to them. Surely, as my hon. Friend said, this is the way to learn and to try to improve the quality of the clip. One should listen to the grader as he points out the various factors which down-grade the quality of wool.
Having said this in favour of the wool producer, it is important to look at the other side of the picture. I want to pay a tribute to the wool merchants for all that they do for the farming community. I hope that the Amendment will not be abused by the producers, that they will act reasonably, that they will keep to the procedure, not delaying the inspection longer than is necessary, and that they will act promptly, because surely this is in their own interests. Delays mean loss of money and extra expense—and the expenses of the Board are constantly rising. I believe that there will be another 1d. knocked off the clip this year because of the increased costs. We want nothing more which would increase those costs because it is the farmer who suffers in the long run.
I hope that all concerned will co-operate to the full to make a success of this great industry because, unless we do, we may find ourselves in serious difficulties due to the very fierce competition which the wool industry is up against. I hope that there will be this co-operation, and I welcome the Amendment wholeheartedly.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Joseph Hiley: It is not often that the House hears the voice of a spinner of wool, but I do not think it necessary for me to declare an interest because I shall not be particularly critical about the Amendment.
I listened with envy to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) explaining that the producer of wool usually received his cheque in about 16 days. Those of us who have to go to the great expense of financing purchases of wool would consider ourselves extremely lucky if we could get our money back in anything like that time.
Not only must the producers of wool improve the marketing of that very important product; at the same time, they should never lose sight of the fact that they should produce wool in a way which would cause us who manipulate the wool far fewer difficulties than we have at present.
I hope that the Board will not have too many people taking advantage of the provisions of the Amendment because if they do, then I fear that there may be many difficulties for the Board. But I am satisfied, particularly from the experience of recent years, that that is not likely to happen.
May I ask the Minister one question? Does the Board itself embark on any marketing activities either as a Board or through some other interest which it may have acquired? There is a feeling in some wool circles that that has happened and it is a source of great disquiet to the wool trade. I should be pleased to know from the Minister whether that is the position.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I join my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) in welcoming the Amendment, but I

should like to sound a note of caution to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I agree with my hon. Friend who, in welcoming the Scheme, called attention to the importance which it might represent for the wool producer in terms of encouraging him in the presentation of his wool to the broker and thus perhaps obtain for him the possibility of a marginally better return.
I hope, however, that the welcome given to the Amendment will not be interpreted by the Parliamentary Secretary as being a mark of favour for his wool and other agricultural policies. In my constituency the wool producers are in a very bad way indeed. We have had a period of rising costs, falling returns, restricted credit and now, on top of all this, the requirement of the Government that hill farmers, as well as other farmers, should make an interest-free loan to the Government for a period of some months.
I welcome the Amendment as far as it goes, but I hope that the Minister recognises that very urgent action is required, particularly for hill farmers, if this great industry is to survive in future.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). This is an important matter for Scotland and I am glad to see that the Minister of State has taken his seat on the Front Bench.
At no time in the history of farming this century have the farmers of Scotland felt more badly treated by any Government. I do not want to cast reflections on the Scheme because it is of great advantage to hill farmers. However, considering the activities of the wool brokers for many years, it is unfortunate that the producers should have been saddled with the cost of the inquiry, which, basically, was totally unnecessary. With those remarks, and with the strong wish that the Government will take some action to help the financial position of farmers, I support the Amendment.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: As my hon. Friends have said, we are discussing the Amendment against the scandalous background of the reduction in the guaranteed prices of wool. This


has covered a period during which we have suffered a disastrous reduction in the hill sheep subsidy. I know all about it having been guaranteed for five years, but it has been reduced by 5s. and, in some cases, by 7s.
We agree that the Amendment is a small step forward for the better presentation of our wool. We wool producers spend our whole lives reading before we can get the price schedule right. We have exhortation from the Wool Board to present our wool in a better manner. I am glad that the Minister of State is in his place, because one of the Department of Agriculture farms in Scotland is still using bloom dip. It is incredible that this should be happening in this day and age. The Government urge us to produce better wool and they are doing everything possible to make it more difficult for us to present our wool in a better manner.
I had hoped that hon. Gentlemen opposite would say something about the work of the Sheep Development Association. After all, one of the easiest things to do is to put a bit more wool on sheep. Some of the sheep owned by the Department of Agriculture in Scotland are bare on the belly and behind the ears. Half a pound of wool is worth quite a lot of money, even to the Government.
We have had a welcome opportunity tonight to air some of the difficulties facing wool producers. Those difficulties have not been made any easier this year. Although we have the right to argue about the grading of our wool, that does not alter the fact that we are being paid a great deal less for our wool and our sheep.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: With permission, I speak again in order to reply to the points which have been made. This is the old story. We bring forward these Motions and the opportunity is taken by the Opposition to use any stick to have a crack at us. The leniency with which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, deal with them is to be commended when they tend so much to get out of order.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) said that there has always been this right of appeal, but that has not been so valuable because the wool could not be inspected. Having

been mixed, it cannot be inspected and so the appeal is not so attractive. Farmers should sometimes inspect the wool. That would give them ideas on how to present it and to get a better price. I agree with the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) that we do not want to see wool sheds cluttered up with farmers hindering the business. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West said that there were in all 59 different grades. If a farmer is changing his broker or had dissatisfaction a year before, that would be a good reason for him to attend. I would not advise him to go too often and have the wool separated.
The hon. Member questioned my figure when I said that within a week after grading the figures were sent. It is normal within a week and the farmer is entitled to appeal within 10 days, but that is not of great value if the wool is not kept separate. I will take note of the suggestion that a duplicate should be sent to the farmer straightaway. These procedures are carried out roughly within 16 to 18 days.
The hon. Member for Torrington welcomed the improvement in the marketing and the safeguard which these Amendments provide. He took the opportunity to suggest that sheep farmers had not been encouraged and that the very small cut in the wool was depressing. I return to the crack someone made about the begging bowl. People will not face the fact that sheep stocks in the country are increasing. People do not go on producing something which does not pay. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West should face the facts. The same kind of thing happened over the annual general meeting of the N.F.U. in Scotland. It was said that cattle yards were empty all over the country, but returns came out in the next week showing that there was an increase in cattle stocks.

Mr. Stodart: rose—

Mr. Mackie: The hon. Member does not like his toes trodden on. I am making my points and I will not give way. The hon. Member should accept the points I am making.
The hon. Member for Torrington paid tribute to the merchants and brokers and that was well deserved. We were happy


to hear the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Hiley) put in his word as a spinner. He asked whether the Board had trading rights. It asked for trading rights on the basis that it could not do the job properly unless it had them and was in the business. The Board does its job well and for that reason it has trading rights. The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) uttered a word of caution, but I am not sure whether it was caution on what I was saying or as a mark of favour. The Amendment is purely and simply for the purpose of improving the marketing scheme, which is not a reason for debating the whole agricultural policy. His caution must be taken as a mark of favour or not, as hon. Members wish.
The hon. Member referred to Perthshire farmers and the Selective Employment Tax but, as they are all self-employed, they will not have to pay the tax.

Mr. Stodart: rose—

Mr. MacArthur: rose—

Mr. Mackie: I said that I would not give way, and I stick to that.

Mr. MacArthur: Completely irresponsible.

Mr. Mackie: It is not irresponsible. A tremendous number of the farmers are self-employed and will not pay the tax. A number of them may have a shepherd, but a tremendous number are self-employed and will not have to pay the tax. As the hon. Member must know, most sheep farmers in Scotland are self-employed. They are in his area.
The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) said that we had cut the hill sheep subsidy, and he made a debating point of it. We have not cut it. The hon. Member cannot make that point, because we stabilised it in 1965 at a figure about 8s. or 9s. above the average of the previous five years, and we increased it by 1s. last March.
I have not given way, because this is not a debate on agricultural policy, although hon. Members opposite have tried to turn it into one. This is a debate on a Scheme relating to the Wool Board. I have simply replied to the points brought up by hon. Members opposite. I take it that the House will now accept the Amendment that the Wool Board wish.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Amendment of the British Wool Marketing Scheme 1950, as amended, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st April, be approved.

Orders of the Day — SARAWAK AND SABAH (GIFTS)

11.1 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Herbert Bowden): I beg to move,
That Mr. Tom Driberg, Mr. Marcus Lipton. Mr. Ray Mawby and Mr. Anthony Royle have leave of absence to present, on behalf of this House, a Speaker's Chair to the Council Negri of Sarawak and a Mace to the Legislative Assembly of Sabah.
The House will recall that earlier in the year it approved the presentation of a Speaker's Chair to the Council Negri of Sarawak and of a mace to the Legislative Assembly of Sabah. The Motion gives leave of absence to the delegation which is to present the gifts. The House may wish to know that the composition of the delegation to perform these pleasant duties has been arranged in consultation with Mr. Speaker and will be accompanied by Mr. S. C. Hawtrey, Clerk of the Journals.

Question put and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)

Mr. William Hamling discharged from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services); Mrs. Gwyneth Dun-woody added.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

Orders of the Day — WHITEHALL (REDEVELOPMENT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

11.3 p.m.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: On the first really spring-like day this year I was walking down Whitehall when I realised with a sudden shock that the incomparable vista of that street was to be completely destroyed by the Whitehall Plan of Sir Leslie Martin and Professor Buchanan, because the pleasant sweep of Whitehall depends on the right widths of the street, on the delightful facade of the buildings on either side, and on the opening out of the street into Parliament Square with its view of the Houses of Parliament and the other buildings on the other side of the Square.
This was a personal feeling which I still have about the plan. A great many experts—planners, architects, traffic engineers, and others with specialised knowledge—have expressed doubts about some aspects of the plan and have given very cogent arguments for a reappraisal of some of the aspects of the Whitehall Plan as a whole. There has been no opportunity, and so far we have been promised no opportunity, of any kind of public inquiry into the plan as a whole and the policies that lie behind it. One of the most important aspects of the plan about which there is a good deal of concern among the public and the experts is the fact that it will concentrate at the southern end of Whitehall an additional 10,000 civil servants working in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster.
It is right to ask whether this is good policy in the first place, or whether it would not be better to disperse civil servants further afield, or even to consider the suggestion which has been made many times—and I was one of the first to make it many years ago—of a new administrative centre right away from London, in the north of England or in some other part of the country.
These may be far-flung considerations, but they are very relevant to the Whitehall Plan and to this concept of making the area into an administrative centre, centring on this building. It is important

that when the Government accept a plan which concentrates office development in this way it should be subject to some kind of public scrutiny. Otherwise, it would appear that the Government are riding roughshod over their own declared policy of dispersing office population from the centre of London. There is also the important question of the offices in other parts of London that are to be vacated by these incoming civil servants. We have had no indication of how their re-letting as offices is to be prevented, if it is to be prevented at all.
These are important policy considerations. The removal of traffic from the Parliament Square precinct, to make it into a pedestrian precinct, will have very serious repercussions on other parts of Central London. The Greater London Council has made it clear that it is concerned about the effect this may have on traffic south of the river. It will obviously have some very serious effects on traffic coming across Lambeth Bridge, and traffic to the west of the Parliament Square area. It has been recognised that it will affect traffic in Trafalgar Square, but the repercussions of this removal of traffic will be very widespread.
It will be very interesting to see how the Greater London Council's review of the traffic situation, and the road problem in Central London, lines up with the suggestions that have been made in the Whitehall Plan, and one would expect some opportunity for discussing this particular aspect of the plan. It is unwise to deal with these matters piecemeal, and it would seem that the present inquiry, which we welcome, that is being held into the Broad Sanctuary site is uncovering, as it goes on day by day, the difficulty of dealing with that part of the scheme before we deal with the scheme as a whole—and deal with it in public, with an opportunity for expert opinion to be expressed.
There is also the problem of the cost. When it is recognised that the riverside tunnel would cost at least £10 million; that the enlargement of the Lambeth Bridge would cost about £4 million; and that the cross route would cost from £40 million to £50 million; the estimate of the former Minister of an initial cost for the whole scheme of £100 million appears to be rather on the small side—large though it is.
Who is to be responsible for the financial side of this traffic re-arrangement? The Greater London Council has made it quite clear that it could not meet this enormous cost in relation to all its other roadworks. If it is to be the Government's responsibility, then this should be clearly stated, and there should be an opportunity for discussing it, for quite clearly there is so much involved in this plan.
I have mentioned just a few points of policy. I have indicated the enormous cost and, looking ahead to the future, one wonders whether all future possibilities have also been taken into consideration. Presumably before the scheme gets under way, it is possible that decisions will have been taken about the use of private motor cars in the Central London area as a whole which might completely change our concept of the traffic-free precinct in Parliament Square, because this might not be necessary.
There is also the possibility of a change in the method of transport. All kinds of transport changes are being proposed. Have these been taken into consideration? There is the cost of taking buses out of this area and rerouteing them. Many people think that in any event that is undesirable. There are many aspects that need decision.
Unfortunately, because this is a Government plan which the Government have accepted, they are above the normal planning processes. They will not be subject to public inquiry as any other planning authority would be. They did not need to consult, and they did not consult, the appropriate planning authorities, the Greater London Council and the Westminster City Council, before they decided to accept the plan.
Since the plan was first put before the public, however, and since it was welcomed, as I am sure we all welcome it, for its scope and imagination, some of these difficulties have been put forward and it has become increasingly clearer that a number of questions must be answered and a number of policy points need to be debated.
Since we have a new Minister and, one would hope, a new look at the Ministry, I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who

is to reply to this debate on behalf of the Minister, will be able to indicate that the Ministry has had second thoughts about this matter and will make arrangements for what I call a full public inquiry, which would be the forum to discuss the policy aspects of the whole Whitehall Plan before it proceeds further.
The area, the implications and the policies are of such great public importance that I very much hope that my hon. Friend will be able to indicate that the Ministry has had second thoughts and will do as I suggest, or, at least, will consider doing this and, emerging from the present limited inquiry, will proceed to something much larger where the whole country can see and hear the issues debated and the people can feel that they are part of the decisions which are being made.

11.13 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke: The Opposition regard the future of Whitehall as a matter of great national importance. That was why the Martin-Buchanan Report was commissioned in April, 1964. This is also a matter of tremendous national interest. Indeed, there was even a television programme entitled "A pity about the Abbey", which some hon. Members will have seen.
The limited public inquiry now taking place will, no doubt, be of considerable value, although we take the view that it would be as well to explore the whole matter in this House. The Opposition would like to have a full debate on the whole matter as soon as possible. I hope that the Government will be able to arrange this. Certainly, as a result of the present inquiry, there will be many points which we shall have to explore, and many hon. Members will wish to take part. My hon. Friend the Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith), who is present tonight, would, no doubt, have valuable views on this matter, which affects his constituency particularly, but he could hardly deploy them in the limited time available to us tonight.
Many vital aspects concerning the future of Whitehall are still matters for debate. Even though the prime consideration for the future of the Foreign Office must surely be the efficient working


of a great Department of State, there may still be found to be ways by which the best of this group of buildings can be preserved for the future.
The Martin-Buchanan Report suggests that the Brydon Treasury buildings should be swept away, and this, surely, is a matter for debate. We would be interested to know the Government's view about this. The Middlesex Guildhall, another fine and interesting building in this area, has a doubtful future, and we should like a chance to debate this matter. At present we see the new House of Commons building across the road in Bridge Street to be the responsibility of a Commonwealth architect, the Government offices in Parliament Street and Bridge Street to be the responsibility of the Ministry of Works, and the Brydon building, its future hanging in the balance. None of this ties up with Martin-Buchanan, so there is plenty here to discuss and for the House to debate.
Then, surely, there is the question of the traffic which is probably of greater public interest than any of the debates over the future of the buildings. Here, surely, a start could be made straight away to get rid of some of the through traffic. We take the view that the suggestion of the road along the Embankment passing the river front of the Palace of Westminster is one of the best proposals of the Martin-Buchanan Report, although we should be slow to do damage to the appearance and amenities of this building. We should like to see an exploration into the possibilities of lowering this road well below the bed of the river so that the terrace of the House of Commons is not affected and the enjoyment of the public adversely disturbed.
Therefore, although we must be cautious in this matter, the fullest possible investigation will obviously produce the best results. We should like a debate in the House and the widest possible inquiry to be made outside.

11.16 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Public Building and Works (Mr. James Boyden): I appreciate very much indeed the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler) gave me notice of the points that she intended to raise and

the very pleasant manner in which she has raised them tonight.
One of the remarkable things about the Martin-Buchanan Plan for Whitehall is the very large consensus of agreement which exists about its general objectives. It is an imaginative concept. Perhaps what is not quite so well appreciated is the expertise which is being used and developed in working to achieve the general objectives. I think everybody in the House would agree with that.
I do not think Marston Moor for Parliament is on. The Prime Minister a few days ago gave a rather firm answer on that and, great as is my enthusiasm for the North, I do not think that in my present position I have any right to say anything about it. We must confine ourselves to the relatively narrow field of the Martin-Buchanan proposals.
I do not altogether agree with my hon. Friend about the lack of opportunity for public discussion. There has been a great deal of discussion on the general objectives for some time. In the London Development Plan of 1962, which is now part of the initial development plan for Greater London, the area between Trafalgar Square, Smith Square, St. James's Park and the river is zoned as a Government and Commonwealth precinct. The written statement expresses the intention
… to preserve the traditional character of the area and to secure, so far as development control permits, that development should be principally for Crown, Government and Commonwealth uses, ecclesiastical uses, clubs and uses ancillary to those uses.
The G.L.C. in its observations, I think on 3rd May, gave a fairly strong endorsement to the general objectives. It said on page 3:
The uses within this area"—
that is, the area of Parliament Square and Whitehall—
and the immediate surroundings are associated with three main activities—State occasions, Government use and public and tourist use. The intention of establishing this area as a precinct free from through vehicular traffic is clearly welcomed on planning and civic design grounds alone"—
and here comes the slight dissent; I say it is slight, although I do not know whether the G.L.C. thinks it is slight—
although in a later section of this report we express doubts about the road proposals to secure this end.


I do not disguise the fact that there are a number of detailed proposals involved, but I should have thought that the G.L.C., the Press and the many other interested parties would have thoroughly approved the general objectives. I do not think  can be said that there has not been plenty of opportunity for discussing the proposals leading up to the plan and the Martin-Buchanan Plan itself. One can take examples from some of the most important aspects. The question of the new building for Parliament has been discussed on several occasions at length in the House, and some decisions have been taken. Of course, as the House knows, there are discussions going on in the appropriate Committee of the House and with the Ministry of Public Building and Works to work out what we, the clients—if I may put myself in that position—want in relation to a Parliamentary building. This is one of the good and new things—

Mr. Robert Cooke: The hon. Gentleman will recall that the House turned down the Holford scheme and the Gothic scheme, if I may so call it. There are doubts about the present scheme, and it does conflict with Martin-Buchanan.

Mr. Boyden: It is questions of that sort which are being and will be resolved by co-operative discussion. They will be discussed democratically in the Committee which will work in conjunction with the Ministry or Public Building and Works. Our rôle in the matter will be to assist the Committee. We have more facilities for technical consideration than, perhaps, the Committee itself has, in ascertaining what is wanted by Parliament. Obviously, this will be a matter of interest here in the House of Commons, and I think that this particular aspect is an example of something better discussed—I hope that my hon. Friend will agree—in a Parliamentary Committee and on the Floor of the House, if necessary, rather than by public inquiry.
The same applies to the Foreign Office. The previous Government took a firm decision to pull the Foreign Office down, and the present Government have confirmed that decision. Naturally, the bodies concerned with planning will be consulted about the building. My hon.

Friend suggested that the Government were not consulting planning authorities as others would, but I feel that she should, perhaps, reconsider that view. It is the general policy of Government Departments to consult, and in this case there has been no difference.
There have been very many proposals as to how to deal with the Foreign Office. On each occasion there has been a shift or a new idea has come up. The latest proposal of the preservationists is to leave the frontage overlooking the Park. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) reiterated the decision of the previous Government, and I must say that, as far as I am personally concerned, I am very much in favour of it.
There was a debate in the other place on 22nd December, and the Government spokesman again reaffirmed the decision to pull down the Foreign Office, for a variety of reasons. I shall not give those reasons now. One thing I liked in that debate was the contribution by Lord Caccia, who ought to know about the Foreign Office, having spent a long time in it. The noble Lord told a story of an American ambassador who used to come to the Foreign Office, and he was heard to remark to the lift man, "I would have you know that in my country trees grow faster than your elevator moves". That was the situation in 1929. I do not know whether the lifts have been improved in speed, but the generally poor conditions in the Foreign Office have persisted since those days, with only slight modifications. Firm decisions have been taken on this, and although I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have another look at the situation, we see no reason at all why there should be any further general discussion about it at the moment.
In general decisions are delayed by a public inquiry. In planning inquiries, people who have a vested interest, an interest which they are perfectly entitled to, come along to air their views. They defend their narrow point, very often with the assistance of expensive counsel to put the case. A matter such as this, however, is a matter of high policy for the Government and Parliament to decide, is really not appropriate for further public discussion of the sort to which, I think, my hon. Friend referred.
The two councils—Westminster City Council and the G.L.C.—were sent copies of the plan on 20th July, and the Town Clerk of the City of Westminster replied when he had the plan:
I expect that the City Council will share the Government's views on the proposals.
I have suggested that the G.L.C., although it has some detailed criticisms—most of which will be discussed with it—generally approves of the plan.
Traffic plans are under intensive consideration in the Ministry of Transport and the G.L.C. A feasibility study is going on into the tunnel under the river. These are very much matters of technical appraisement, but they are of concern to the citizens of London, the citizens of Great Britain and, for that matter, citizens of the world. The solutions should he studied technically and be discussed by the people who have particular democratic responsibility for them and not in terms of a public inquiry going over the whole ground.
My hon. Friend raised the question of office accommodation and of concentration of 10,000 civil servants in the Whitehall area.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: An additional 10,000.

Mr. Boyden: Yes; 10,000 more. So far the outline plans do not propose to concentrate quite that number. Ten thousand is the absolute maximum. In any case, the architects have not even started planning buildings. The actual numbers will he discussed in the light of the clients' brief which is being prepared—for the Foreign Office, the Parliament building and the Government office. The architects will then be able to work on the plans.
Settling the problem seems less a matter of public inquiry than a matter of Government policy, debatable in the House of Commons, taking into account the Board of Trade policy for offices and so on. My Department has an interest here. We like to build new offices on Crown property because it is the cheapest way of doing it. We also like to get civil servants out of London because that is cheaper. There are considerable pressures on us not to concentrate civil servants too much in the centre of London. But, of course, it may be

more economical and efficient and in no way against the policy of the Greater London Council or the City of Westminster to have a bigger concentration immediately in Whitehall and a thinner concentration in other parts.
My point is that this is part of Government dispersal policy, of Government office policy, and is better resolved by discussion between Government Departments, in this House, and by consultation with such bodies as the Greater London Council. The detailed points which they raise are the traffic difficulties, those which my hon. Friend made—which will all be considered carefully. Indeed, they are under active discussion at the moment. The other road proposals, which stem from the proposals for the narrower area which we are discussing, are also under consideration by the traffic authorities.
I wanted to say a word about such inquiries as could be helpful to the process of general planning as distinct from an overall public inquiry. My hon. Friend referred to the one which concluded yesterday, on the Broad Sanctuary area. There was a similar public discussion in 1961 about the Bridge Street and Richmond Terrace area.
Both these public inquiries are the normal planning inquiries, the purpose of which is to give the ordinary citizen—the property owner—an opportunity of putting his case to an inspector of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, who then reports to the Minister. There are areas within the area covered by the plan where it would be useful and proper for an inquiry to be held—for example, the area behind Westminster Central Hall, the area along the line of Great Peter Street taking in part of the Victoria Tower Gardens. I do not know whether my hon. Friend would react violently to a development across Victoria Tower Gardens; it would probably ruin the view.
All this is a long way off, but these are the sorts of area which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West had in mind when he agreed to the inquiry which has just taken place, and made suggestions for other inquiries of a similar sort. The Civic Trust came to see the Minister some time ago on the question of a general inquiry. In the


discussions that followed the Civic Trust and the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) accepted the general indication that these narrow inquiries, involving private property and private views, and which went into the periphery of the scheme, were the suitable inquiries. They were prepared to forgo the idea of a general public inquiry which my hon. Friend has raised tonight.
The matter has been discussed for a long time and there is general agreement about the plan. The Martin-Buchanan Plan is an excellent general concept for the development of the area. There will be the fullest co-operation, discussion and technical collaboration on all points, to get the very best conspectus of view on

the situation. On the question of individual planning inquiries, my right hon. Friend the previous Minister has said that these will take place, and I see no reason to think that the new Minister will in any way dissent from that view. I hope that what I have said will go some way towards satisfying my hon. Friend. I thank her very much for raising the subject.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-seven minutes to Twelve o'clock.